On a chilly, overcast Thanksgiving morning, Cemal Richards whizzed around River City Church in Vancouver, delivering to-go boxes of warm meals to waiting cars in the parking lot. Grinning from ear to ear, it was clear there was nowhere else he’d rather spend the holiday. “It’s a big deal to be here,” Richards said.
“A lot of people don’t have the opportunity to help somebody else. And that one thing you do for somebody may be the thing that gets them through the rest of the holiday.” From 11 a.
m. to 2 p.m.
, hundreds of people passed through the church doors or pulled into the parking lot. Each new face was welcomed with a homemade tamale lunch complete with pumpkin empanadas, rice, beans, chips and salsa. The Fourth Plain corridor is known as an international district in Vancouver, said Melody Finn, director of operations at River City Church.
This year’s menu reflects the area’s multicultural population. “We decided to come up with something that would be unique and unusual,” Finn said. “And tamales seem to be special.
You don’t order them every day.” The event depends on about 50 volunteers like Richards, who developed his passion for helping others growing up in Oakland. “My family came together to give out toiletry bags to the homeless,” he said.
“We used to go to downtown Oakland, in Stockton, where there’s a large homeless encampment. We just went around talking to people, giving out toiletry bags, and they were super excited and ever.
