For the last 12 years, a few friends have been coming together to provide hot meals to those in need on Christmas Eve.
Operation Big Turkey is being held at seven locations across the city.
It’s a free meal, including turkey, stuffing, veggies and all the extras of a good holiday feast.
Chris Knight, one of the organizers, who wanted to be referred to as a really big turkey, says this all started when a bunch of guys were sitting around, lamenting the commercialization of Christmas.
“It was all about maxing out your credit card,” he says. “And we decided in our pudgy, comfortable, upper-middle class whiteness, maybe we should do something to give back to the community. Food is really important to us so we decided we’d do Christmas dinner. The first year we had maybe 70 guests. This year, we’re expecting to feed about 3000 guests.”
He says guests come from all walks of life.
“There are those who genuinely are in need of a meal, who would go without otherwise,” Knight says. “We have new Canadians who are kind of stunned at the snow and this thing called Christmas, and we have people who just want some company. Being hungry or being alone is never good, but at Christmas it’s worse than ever. Some people just want a conversation.”
Everyone who comes to a meal is treated as a guest. There are no lines. They sit down and are served a meal.
“We really enjoy spending time with people from the community,” Knight says.
He adds that everything comes together thanks to hundreds of volunteers and sponsors.
“The food is donated to us by Farm Boy, who get zero recognition in return,” he says. “Some of our bread comes from Rideau Bakery. We have these giant hot boxes loaned to us by the National Arts Centre and the Westin Hotel. There are all sorts of different sponsors who help us out.”
He says Farm Boy, in particular, has been a major contributor over the years.
“We kept getting bigger and bigger and prior to that I just paid for everything (and happy to do it),” Knight said. “But I know the CEO of Farm Boy quite well, and I said to Jeff York I needed a herd of turkeys and he instantly said yes. Every time we add a new location, we add about 400 meals and Farm Boy keeps saying yes.”
A lot of the work preparing the meals will begin this weekend at Algonquin College.
“The chef instructors at Algonquin do all of the delicate knife-work and the deboning of the birds,” Knight said. “Algonquin is just phenomenal. We couldn’t do this if we didn’t have use of their kitchens and they say yes every year.”
The turkeys will be finished on the morning of Christmas Eve, so they’ll be nice and fresh, and then put in the hot boxes and trucked to the seven community centres hosting the meals.
You can get a great, made-from-scratch Christmas Dinner are:
Overbook Community Centre
33 Quill Street, Ottawa
Dinner hours: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location info HERE
Hunt Club Riverside-Park Community Centre
3320 Paul Anka Drive, Ottawa
Dinner hours: 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Location info HERE
Albion Heatherington Recreation Centre
1560 Heatherington Road, Ottawa
Dinner hours: 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Location info HERE
Carlington Recreation Centre
1520 Caldwell Avenue, Ottawa
Dinner Hours: 3:30 pm to 5:30pm
Location info HERE
Foster Farm Community Centre
1065 Ramsey Crescent, Ottawa
Dinner hours: 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Location info HERE
Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre
102 Greenview Avenue, Ottawa
Dinner Hours: 3:30 pm to 6:00 pm
Location info HERE
Jack Purcell Community Centre
320 Jack Purcell Lane, Ottawa
Dinner hours: 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Location info HERE
Learn more at their website: http://www.operationbigturkey.org/