'Everybody eats' thanks to leadership of local councilwoman and volunteers
Stephanie Frey, posted Nov. 20, 2006
In a small room filled with bags of potatoes and cans of cranberry sauce is a desk at which sits Councilwoman Almeta Crayton diligently filing papers and answering phones. Volunteers scurry around her, filling paper bags with turkeys, celery and anything else needed to create a Thanksgiving feast.
The small room is the Resident Activity Center in Columbia, as well as the location where Crayton manages her volunteer project named “Everybody Eats.” For the past eight years, Crayton has supplied hundreds of senior citizens, families, and homeless people with Thanksgiving meals. Julia Hickem, a volunteer and friend of Crayton’s, said, “It makes me feel good to help these people. I am disabled myself, and I feel better knowing that I am doing something good with my time.”
Not only does Crayton give out bags filled with turkeys and all the trimmings, but she also hosts a Thanksgiving meal at Lou’s Palace downtown. Crayton and volunteers gather at Lou’s Palace every year to cook and serve hundreds of plates of Thanksgiving favorites. Crayton said, “We get all kinds of people from all over the area, everyone benefits.”
Anyone can volunteer and anyone can come and receive food from the Resident Activity Center or Lou’s Palace on Thanksgiving. When asked why she decided to start the event, Crayton said, “The working poor didn’t always qualify for some things such as food shelters, and so we decided to help them out.”
The event entails two phases. The first is at the Activity Center in which Crayton and volunteers buy the typical Thanksgiving meal ingredients such as turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, etc., for those who have homes where they can cook the meals themselves. The second phase of the event involves the actual meal that is already cooked and prepared at Lou’s Palace for those who are without a place to prepare their own meals.
“This event has grown tremendously,” said Crayton. “Not only in number of those who collect the food, but also in the number of volunteers.”
