The number of participants each year varies, but the group’s efforts are a constant, said Rose Russell, who works with Mid-County United Ministries and has participated in all three marches.
On Sunday, a small crowd of people participated in this year’s march, including Marion Mattingly, the mother of the county police officer killed in the line of duty for whom the food pantry is named. About 1,000 food items were donated.
County Health and Human Services Director Uma Ahluwalia said earlier this month that the cost of higher gas prices and utilities is pushing some families’ budgets over the edge.
‘‘We live in a predominantly middle-class area where we don’t think that people are hungry,” said Russell, a Takoma Park resident.
Running their way to family memories
For most American families, gathering together at Thanksgiving means eating food and watching football. For the Greenbaum family, it means waking up early, lacing up a pair of running shoes and running the YMCA Bethesda Chevy-Chase Turkey Chase.
Running the Thanksgiving morning 10K has become a tradition for the far-flung family.
‘‘Every year we take this big picture, and every year there seems to be more people,” said Gale Greenbaum of Potomac.
Beth and Nathan Greenbaum, also of Potomac, started the tradition about 14 years ago as a way to burn off some calories before sitting down to a feast. And slowly, the idea caught on.
The Greenbaums expect to have about 16 family members and close friends running this year.
With family members spread across the country, running the Turkey Chase is an opportunity to catch up and spend time together. Afterwards, the family usually gathers for coffee before meeting again later to share Thanksgiving dinner.
‘‘We have a huge family and we’re really close,” said Julie Greenbaum, 21, a college senior who will be returning home from Indiana to take part in the race. ‘‘We like to take advantage of the whole day together, so that’s why we start early with the Turkey Chase.”
The Turkey Chase began in 1982 as a fundraiser for the Bethesda Chevy-Chase YMCA and the Bethesda Chevy-Chase Rotary Club. In its first year, about 1,000 people participated; this year, participation is expected to reach 5,500. Over the years, it has raised more than $1 million for the two charities. The race, which includes a 10-kilometer run and a 2-mile fun run, is popular because it brings families together, said John Sissala, race director. ‘‘You have grandparents in their 80s and kids in strollers,” he said.
For the Greenbaums’, they’ll be missing one important family member. Beth Greenbaum’s daughter Heather, a race regular and resident of New York City, won’t be running as she is expecting the arrival of her first child just days after Thanksgiving.
‘‘We’re hoping to have [the baby] down here next year and we’ll run it in a running stroller,” Beth Greenbaum said.
And as the family anticipates its newest race-day addition, some are still adjusting to the loss of the family patriarch. Zachary Greenbaum, a Holocaust survivor and grandfather to many, last participated in the Turkey Chase by walking the 2-mile fun run with the youngest family members shortly before his death from cancer in 2005.
‘‘It will be bittersweet this year,” said Sherry Greenbaum of North Potomac. ‘‘We’ll just focus on having another face at the table next year.”
A gridiron bash for charity
For many, Thanksgiving and football go together like turkey and gravy. And for the past 10 years, alumni of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville have been gathering Thanksgiving morning in a gridiron rumble for charity.
Twenty-six men from the classes of 1982 to 2007 will return to the school for the annual Paul Blank Invitational Football Game. The game was first played in 1998 for fun, and has since grown into a charity event raising more than $5,000 for the Association for Safe International Road Travel, a group founded by Rochelle Sobel, a teacher at the school whose son was killed in a bus crash in Turkey in 1995.
‘‘Most everybody is too young to know him, but probably had his mom as a teacher,” said Dan Fulop, a 1999 graduate and one of the first to play in the PBI as a high school senior.
Noah Zimmerman, also a 1999 graduate and this year’s event chairman, said the game has become ‘‘a nice way to keep in touch” with former classmates. ‘‘We’ve all gone our separate ways, and it’s a nice way once a year to see each other.”
Each year many of the same players return to their alma mater, sometimes from as far away as California.
Ariel Oxman, a self-proclaimed ‘‘veteran,” has been a dedicated player for all 10 years.
Oxman, a 1999 graduate, was in San Francisco on a business trip this week and decided to fly in early on Wednesday morning so he wouldn’t miss Thursday’s game.
‘‘That’s dedication,” he said.
‘‘Every year the community grows more and more as people more disparate in ages come out, and we’re still doing good and still coming together for a good cause,” Oxman said.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the Paul Blank Invitational, the fundraising bar has been raised this year. Last year the game raised roughly $250 through player donations.
This year local businesses have also been asked to donate and so far about $2,000 has been raised.
This year is the first the game will be played as flag football instead of a tackle game. Paul Blank, a Judaic studies teacher and the event’s namesake, said players voted for the change.
‘‘People are getting older and after nobody has done anything [athletic] all year, everyone shows up and wants to be Al Bundy and get crazy,” said Fulop, who has become known as the most injury-prone player in PBI history.
Fulop broke his ankle in 2002 and dislocated his elbow two years ago, which prompted the switch.
Despite the injuries, Fulop and other JDS alumni continue to come back each year because of the camaraderie and dedication to a cause close to their community.
‘‘We don’t see an end. We’ll continue to raise money,” Zimmerman said. ‘‘It’s becoming a much bigger deal and we hope it continues to grow.”
Sobel, who founded ASIRT to help improve road conditions abroad, is thankful for the support.
‘‘The annual football game is a tremendous help to us to fulfill our mission of saving lives on the roads of the world,” she said.
Truly a feast of fortunes
Maybe the secret is in the marinade: the dozens of turkeys that Nader Saleh serves up each Thanksgiving get a good long soak Cajun-style.
Heap on sides of ‘‘Momma’s homemade stuffing,” green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, dinner rolls and mac-and-cheese for the kids. Finish it off with pumpkin pie and pecan pie for dessert, and what Saleh really has is a recipe for true holiday generosity.
Thanksgiving is the one day each season that the Gaithersburg Soup Kitchen, also known as the Lord’s Table at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, doesn’t serve. Saleh, owner of The Chicken Basket restaurant in Olde Towne, makes it his tradition to provide hundreds of homeless and needy county residents a holiday feast.
Thursday will mark the 11th year that more than 500 people are treated to Thanksgiving dinner at Gaithersburg Elementary School and dozens more are delivered baskets of food.
About 38 turkeys and scores of volunteers were needed to feed last year’s crowd. Last week, Saleh’s cell phone was flooded with 82 voicemails from people wanting to volunteer their help for this year’s meal.
‘‘It’s been such a blessing serving our community,” he said Thursday. ‘‘It has been so very successful that everyone wants to be a part of our event. Everyone gets so into it.”
Parishioners of the Derwood Bible Church volunteer each year, as do the employees of several Gaithersburg businesses and members of the Gaithersburg Elementary school community. The school covers the cost of opening the school building on a holiday.
Festive and light-hearted, the school cafeteria hums with the spirit of giving spirit every year, said Rosa Baxter, Gaithersburg Elementary’s administrative assistant. Volunteers take time to sit with the guests and make them feel at home, she said. Music plays, many sing along. Cameras capture keepsakes.
Some volunteers bustle in and out, delivering meals to the area’s elderly. Even the crews prepping food in the kitchen have their fun, Baxter said, who hasn’t missed volunteering at a single Chicken Basket Thanksgiving.
‘‘It’s our way of giving back to the community. Many of the families that come here are our own kids, our own families, so why not?” she said. ‘‘It’s just an act of kindness. Regardless of your circumstances, you’re invited. Come on in.”
It’s been nearly 20 years since Saleh, having just arrived from Lebanon, landed a job washing dishes at the Chicken Basket, dreaming that someday he would buy the little building that houses the restaurant.
Almost as soon as that day came, he knew he had to give back. More than a decade later, he said, never mind the undisclosed cost, never mind the weeks of planning, this is one Thanksgiving tradition Saleh vows to keep going.
‘‘When you go in there and people are waiting to meet you or to come and see you,” he said, pausing. ‘‘These families, they look forward to that day every year. Give me one reason that I can’t.”
In the spirit of giving thanks
Close to a thousand families will have Thanksgiving dinners thanks to the generosity of others.
More than 100 volunteers organized by the nonprofit ThanksgivingCares converged in Rockville and worked long hours on Monday and Tuesday to assemble and deliver food baskets to roughly 900 families living in the Aspen Hill, Rockville, Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Wheaton, White Oak and Hyattsville areas.
In addition to frozen turkeys, canned yams, cranberry sauce, vegetables, fresh rolls and pumpkin pie for eight, the families received toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, soap and gift certificates. They also received cookies baked by culinary students at Thomas Edison High School in Wheaton.
LeadershipCares, a 10-year-old nonprofit, promotes adult literacy, provides food for the needy at Thanksgiving and promotes mentoring. The group, which also started ThanksgivingCares, was founded by Ron Yudd of Gaithersburg.
Four years ago, Leadership Cares began its mentoring program at Northwestern High.
This year’s volunteers included the John F. Kennedy High School ROTC, students being mentored at Northwestern High, and adults and children who just wanted to help, Yudd said.
Mike McCarthy, 24, of Arlington, Va., has been helping since the project began with 16 Thanksgiving baskets for needy Damascus families. He was a student at Damascus High School at the time. Now working full time and attending law school, McCarthy cleared his schedule to help again this year.
‘‘I grew up in a pretty affluent community,” McCarthy said. ‘‘Sometimes you can go days or weeks or months and not realize how good you have it. Driving five minutes to deliver [food] to some of the less fortunate is kind of surprising.”
Jan and Bob Romanoff of North Potomac retired in 2001 and saw an ad for volunteers. They have been helping the holiday project ever since.
The couple remembers happy childhood Thanksgivings and said they help out each year to ensure other families will have equally happy memories.
‘‘To think this is Montgomery County where the need arises is a crying shame,” Bob Romanoff said. ‘‘Our goal is to not have to do this at all.”
Each basket costs about $20 paid for by fundraising. The toiletries were collected by Basic Necessities, a nonprofit founded by twins Madeline and Hannah Carretero of Kensington.
Another kind of turkey tradition
The feathered ate first at Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary’s 8th annual Thanksgiving with the Turkeys Saturday afternoon in Poolesville.
Before the roughly 300 attendees could begin serving themselves at the vegan potluck dinner, four tabletops covered with an array of fruits, veggies and seeds were laid on the ground for the nonprofit sanctuary’s resident chickens, guinea hens and, of course, turkeys.
‘‘Welcome to Poplar Springs’ Thanksgiving with the Turkeys,” co-director Terry Cummings said before being interrupted by a chorus of gobbles. ‘‘The turkeys welcome you, too. It’s so nice to see so many people coming out for a Thanksgiving that’s truly cruelty-free.”
The November tradition has steadily grown since its first year, she said, when it attracted just 40 people and was housed in a barn on the 400-acre property, home formerly abused or neglected farm animals. The outdoor event now draws people from as far away as Philadelphia and Norfolk, Va., and on Saturday the food line stretched all the way to the entrance gate. Some had been coming for years, while others were checking it out for the first time.
‘‘Thanksgiving is such a meat-centered holiday, and it’s so safe to be [here] among all the other vegetarians,” said Lee Erickson of Poolesville, who has been attending the event with her husband and two young children for the past seven years. ‘‘Sometimes you feel in the minority.”
The guests each brought a vegan dish to share, each free of meat and animal products such as milk or eggs. On the menu were such treats as vegan pumpkin cheesecakes, scalloped corn, cranberry couscous, spiced cider, mashed sweet potatoes, cornbread, veggie burgers and
gingerbread apple pie.
‘‘It’s not just salads, that’s what I like,” Cummings said as she surveyed the rows of tables, each carefully adorned with small pumpkins and colorful squash. ‘‘This just shows what a wide variety you have when you take animal products out.”
Likely giving thanks for the vegan feast were the sanctuary’s six turkeys, all originally destined for the dinner table. Gobbles, Gertrude and Eliot were found seven years ago in a cage behind a Washington, D.C., restaurant, Cummings said, adding that 250 million turkeys are killed for meat every year in the United States. Victor was found walking down a Germantown sidewalk on Thanksgiving two years ago, Carly was saved after she fell of a truck on the way to the slaughterhouse and Opal, another slaughterhouse escapee, was rescued by two passing motors who saw the bird scrambling across a highway.
Carol McCormick and her husband, of Rockville, have been vegans for 40 years, ‘‘and we would never think of killing a sentient being,” the farm rescue worker and frequent sanctuary visitor said as she cradled Simon, a rooster having a rough day due to a sinus infection, in her arms. On the lapel of her coat was a pin that read, ‘‘Don’t gobble me! Be kind to turkeys.”
‘‘The whole thing with the president pardoning the turkey? The real deal is here in Poolesville,” Erickson said.
