Big Island community continues tradition of providing Thanksgiving meals for those in need

Businesses and nonprofits once again are coming together to ensure Hawai‘i Island residents who are in need will have a nice meal on Thanksgiving.

Among them are Jackie Rey’s restaurant in Kona and the Salvation Army Hilo Temple Corps in Hilo.

Beginning at 10:30 a.m. at Jackie Rey’s, employees and volunteers will pass out take-away holiday meals that include turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, a roll, and of course, pumpkin pie.

It’s first-come first-serve, with all dinners usually handed out within the hour at the restaurant located at 75-5995 Kuakini Highway in Suite 1.

The restaurant packs about 800 meals, of which 400 are given to the Salvation Army to take to housing developments and to deliver to shut-ins. The rest of the meals usually go to those experiencing homelessness.

“We’re trying to help as many people as we can get a single meal for the day,” Jackie Rey’s owner Chad Atkinson said.

The Salvation Army Hilo Temple Corps is hosting its annual Thanksgiving lunch at Aunt Sally Kaleohanoʻs Lūʻau Hale on Thursday with food from Pacific Mix Catering. 

“The Salvation Army has quite a long tradition of serving Thanksgiving meals to the community,” Corps Officer Capt. Sam LeMar said. “We found Pacific Mix Catering to help us out and have developed a great relationship with them. I know food prices have increased, but they didnʻt raise the cost for us this year, which was really nice.”

The Salvation Army is serving 400 meals at Aunt Sallys at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday and another 200 will be delivered to low-income senior housing units in Hilo.

In Kona, more than 40 turkeys and pumpkin pies were purchased for the meals by Jackie Rey’s. The operation also required renting a refrigerated truck.

This year, food costs for the holiday meals were up about 10%, and his distributors weren’t able to donate as much as they have in the past, so he had to look for additional vendors to help. Monetary donations also were down by 25%.

But the restaurant has made it work, with the donations from local food suppliers and from other restaurants.

“It’s a large community effort that’s distributed through our restaurant,” Atkinson said. “It’s really heartwarming to see the community come together and volunteers give up their own Thanksgiving to get the meals ready to go.”

Atkinson said some people plan their visit to the Big Island around volunteering to help prep and plate these Thanksgiving meals, which began on Tuesday. This year, more than 50 people have volunteered.

“It’s like this big conveyor belt of people serving into containers and carrying them away,” Atkinson said.

Facilitating these dinners is the restaurant’s way to give back to the community and see the smiles of the unhoused individuals who will get a holiday meal.

“They’re going to have the same Thanksgiving dinner that people who come to the restaurant later that evening will pay for,” Atkinson said. “It’s absolutely rewarding.”

Autum Soares, who owns Pacific Mix Catering with her husband Lee Soares, said there was a slight increase in food costs for the 600 meals they are preparing.

“We try to keep costs low and are always looking out for deals, so we decided to go to Costco [in Kona] since they had a great deal on turkeys at 99 cents a pound,” she said. “We ended up buying 40 turkeys. The produce did go up in price slightly, but it was not too much of a change from 2023. It was super manageable.”

Lee Soares rented a refrigerated van for the afternoon trip to Costco.

“For feeding 600 people, we were able to make it happen with a minimal budget,” Soares said. “It was a slight inconvenience to rent a refrigerated van and travel to the west side, but honestly worth it. We truly enjoy the process and are very excited to be serving so many in our community again.”

Todayʻs meal includes stuffing, gravy, corn, green salad, Hawaiian sweet rolls, rice, pumpkin pie and, of course, turkey, which was cooked in an imu, which is an underground oven traditionally used in Hawaiʻi.

“Turkey in the imu is the most efficient way to prepare that many turkeys at once and it took about 15 hours,” Soares said. “We will spend all night Wednesday making the rice and preparing the other sides, which we will make Thursday morning between 6:30 until lunch is served at 11:30.”

Similarly to Jackie Reyʻs, Pacific Mix and the Salvation Army were inundated with more volunteers than expected this year. They will be cooking the food with the Soares beforehand, serving the community and cleaning up during and afterward.

“There are almost too many volunteers that have signed up to help,” LeMar joked. “We also have local musicians and hula dancers volunteering to perform for the community as they eat. Itʻs going to be a great time.”