Twenty-one-year-old Shane Benyo ran as he lugged a large tray of stuffing to the end of table as an assembly line of volunteers cheered him on.
Within moments, the Thanksgiving volunteers were filling up Styrofoam plates at a hectic pace with turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy and an assortment of pies.
About 200 volunteers from across the Denver metro were on a mission to feed Thanksgiving dinners to as many as 6,000 elderly shut-ins, needy families and homeless people. A well-organized fleet of vans, cars and pickup trucks took the meals to destinations across the Denver area.
The food-serving assembly line was set up outside The Squeaky Bean restaurant in LoDo.
“We just hit 2,800,” said T. J. Cole, who was counting the plates. “We’ve been cranking meals out since 7 a.m. It’s amazing the spirit that you see. It’s an uplifting thing and boy do we need it.”
Cole’s family has organized and spearheaded the annual holiday feast the past 20 years, Cole said. Most of that time .
Last year, The Squeaky Bean took over. The first year the feast fed about 3,000 meals. This year that number could double.
“We want to carry on a tradition of feeding the hungry,” said Josh Olsen, 34, a part owner of The Squeaky Bean.
Inside the restaurant, volunteers served homeless and needy people at tables.
Among them was Steve Davis, 51, a combat veteran of the Army and Denver’s streets. He loaded shells in an Abrams tank while serving in Iraq during Desert Storm and he sheltered under the stars with fellow homeless people at Confluence Park when a serial killer was beheading and slashing seven homeless men to death in 1999, he said.
Davis said he lived on the streets for 13 years before a local charity put him in a Lakewood apartment by subsidizing his rent. The bipolar man took a bus Thursday morning to Broadway and walked the rest of the way to The Squeaky Bean.
“I have no complaints,” Davis said of his Thanksgiving meal service. “This is my second plate. They could be eating with their own families and watching football.”
