D.C. nonprofit delivers Thanksgiving meals to those struggling with cancer, organ failure

The giving spirit was alive and well Thursday at Food & Friends’ D.C. headquarters, where volunteers packed, stacked and loaded hundreds of Thanksgiving dinners for people suffering from severe illnesses.

The nonprofit, known for bringing specialized meals to clients battling cancer or struggling with heart problems, normally goes to great lengths to prepare food that accommodates each person’s diet.

But the aptly named Food & Friends does what anyone’s loved one would do for you on Thanksgiving: serve a plate filled with turkey, stuffing and a miscellaneous green that will leave you content.

“Thanksgiving is the one day that they can kind of let their hair down and eat anything they want,” said Rasheem Adurrahman, the organization’s executive chef.

Hundreds of volunteers showed up at the organization’s Northeast facility before dawn to start packaging meals for families spread across the metropolitan area.

An assembly line of helping hands featuring members of Food & Friends’ board of directors quickly placed everything from buttered corn to apple pie — and of course, a large bird — inside a giant blue tote bag.

Once a rack of meals had been stocked and rolled out to a waiting van, the meals were driven to one of 900 families in need.

It’s a practiced routine for the nonprofit, said Executive Director Carrie Stoltzfus, as Food & Friends has been giving out Thanksgiving dinners nearly every year since its founding in 1988.

What was originally a small operation delivering food to home-bound people with AIDS now assists those suffering from organ failure, HIV, systemic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and all types of cancers.

Ms. Stoltzfus said clients are referred to the organization through a medical provider, so they make meals for one person struggling with nausea from chemotherapy and another for someone who is dealing with diabetes.

But even with the frequent deliveries Food & Friends makes each week, Thanksgiving is its single biggest work day of the year.

Roughly 9,000 pounds of turkey, 6,000 dinner rolls and 700 gallons of gravy were handled by volunteers throughout the holiday.

Mr. Adhurrahman said his team cooks all the meals from scratch in advance, and then sends a chilled turkey with frozen sides to the homes. On Thursday, the kitchen staff was helping move the dinners while juggling its usual workload of prepping food for some 1,200 clients.

The Thanksgiving meal is important, the chef said, because it gives people a chance to serve a meal when they’re often too sick to cook for themselves. He called it a part of their own “healing process.”

To Ms. Stoltzfus, it’s an opportunity to show what the District is actually like.

“A lot of people who don’t live here like to talk about D.C., but they don’t really mean us who live here. They mean Congress or something political,” the executive director said. “This is our city. There’s wonderful, giving people who would get up at 4:30 a.m., or 6:30 a.m., or whenever, to come and take care of their neighbors. And I don’t think we get enough credit for that.”