Happy Thanksgiving to All

My partner and I spend part of every Thanksgiving and Christmas Day at "Martha's." Martha’s Village and Kitchen is truly a grassroots organization. In 1990, Gloria Gomez and Claudia Castorena, recognizing a need, started assembling cold sandwiches in a local church kitchen. After a few months, they began serving one hot meal a week. Donations and volunteers increased over the years, and by 1998, Martha’s was serving 350 hot meals, five days a week.

Today, Martha’s Village and Kitchen, located in Indio, California, is a comprehensive program for the hungry and homeless in the Coachella Valley. Located on 10 acres, it provides housing for 120 guests, including families with children and single women. As a tertiary prevention program, the Center offers educational programs, job training, children's programs and counseling, as well as assistance with job placement and permanent housing. An on-site medical clinic serves clients’ health care needs. Martha’s Village and Kitchen provides 250,000 meals annually to the poor of the Coachella Valley.

The Village is a non-profit service organization affiliated with Father Joe’s Villages whose mission statement reads: To serve our neighbors by responding to their needs with food, clothing, shelter, and an opportunity to become self sufficient by affirming their dignity with love, compassion, and respect.

Today we served over one thousand meals and packaged several hundred “to-go” plates. No one was turned away, and no one left hungry. A whole group of volunteers worked to assemble table decorations, because Martha’s Village practices the “bread and roses” philosophy, made famous at the Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile workers strike in 1912. The entire operation was very well organized, allowing volunteers to prepare the food, assemble the plates, and then serve those that came to eat after they were seated at the tables.

Today I was reminded that one (in this case two) person really can make a difference. Gloria and Claudia, Martha’s co-founders, still work at Martha’s Village and Kitchen, having watched their vision to feed the hungry grow into the comprehensive organization it is today. Both women were Thanksgiving Day volunteers. If these women can do this, what could I do?

I was also reminded that there is a great deal of compassion in this valley. At some points, there were more volunteers in Martha’s dining room than there were people needing meals. We fed more than one thousand individuals and families. I felt a powerful sense of collective agency as I worked in concert with an 81-year-old first-generation German immigrant, the owner of the local Italian eatery The Red Tomato, and a single Mexican mother and her two teenage sons.

Today, I learned many things from those I served: lessons not easily forgotten.

I learned to always be thankful for what you have and to do what you can for those who have less from the middle-aged woman who asked me if she could take a plate back to where they “stay” for the friend who can’t walk.

I learned that it is terribly impolite to start eating before the rest of the table has been served from a multi-generational family of six who all sat patiently, watching the steam swirl up from their plates, waiting until each one had a meal before anyone lifted a fork.

I learned to always be thankful from a group of single men, who all joined hands and bowed their heads in prayer before they ate.

I learned that sometimes pride can be a bigger motivator than hunger from the two women we served in the parking lot. They also taught me that community activism means filling a need, wherever the need is present, not simply waiting for those in need to come to you.

I learned that not all volunteer work is glorified, but that it is work that needs to be done just the same. My partner and I spent several hours wrapping plastic utensils in paper napkins so that they could be quickly distributed during public lunches.

So this is why I never cook a complete Thanksgiving Dinner. Because by the time we come home, all I want to do is rest, eat apple crisp, and contemplate the blessings I have in my life.