'We want to give back to the community': NAIT prepares Thanksgiving feast for Edmonton's homeless

For more than two decades, students and instructors in NAIT’s Culinary Program have been whipping up Thanksgiving meals for Edmonton’s vulnerable population.

 

“We want to give back to the community, that’s what we can do as cooks,” said Paul Campbell, a program chair with NAIT’s culinary program.

 

Every year students and instructors spend up to eight hours preparing the meals.

 

“Boyle Street gets all the food from the food bank, they get some donations, actually a donation from Cisco this year and so we coordinate all that to arrive here at NAIT in enough time for us to prepare all the meals,” he said.

 

Campbell said the number of people they help feed varies from year to year, but this year volunteers are making enough to provide about 800 Thanksgiving meals.

 

“We’re doing 80 turkeys, 250 pounds of potatoes, 100 loaves of bread. We’ll make 100 litres of gravy,” said Campbell.

 

For some students, this is the first time cooking a meal of this size.

 

“They’ve cooked turkey before, they’ve done dressing before, gravy all the components but not at this scale by any sense of the imagination,” Instructor Troy Lymburner said.

 

About 30 students signed up to help prepare this year’s meal and some will help serve it too.

 

“Knowing that we can do our passion while giving back to others, it’s really good,” said student Kazie Pauline Dela Cruz.

 

“I worked at Rogers Place last season and I would pass Boyle Street all the time and it’s not nice to see people suffering so it’s nice to be able to help,” student Eric Lagace said.

 

“We love to do it but I think in the long run our goal would be that this isn’t necessary,” said Lymburner, who has been overseeing the Thanksgiving meal since its inception.

 

“They deserve to have a hot meal but I think really our dream would be eventually to have none of this have to happen.”

 

Boyle Street Community Services and Bissell Centre will host the ‘Friendship Feast’ on Monday October 9 at the Boyle Street Plaza.

 

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nav Sangha