Thanksgiving Meals made with Love!

By: Eric Biedermann

A community springing into action is an inspiring thing. When Arlene & Sarah organized this year’s Thanksgiving project, I was counting on a massive volunteer effort to prepare more than 130 Thanksgiving meals, and the team delivered! What I hadn’t expected, and what blew me away, was the extemporaneous community effort to help us distribute those meals the day before Thanksgiving. 

Tuesday Night meal prep night at Arlene and Jesse’s house was a clinic in efficiency. More than 24 of us baked desserts, carved meat, opened cans, and boxed up meals. Many hands made light work. We were done before the kiddos could finish watching K-Pop Demon Hunters. 

On Wednesday morning, I arrived to find things were already set up at Michael Thomas. We had a tent, free coffee, meals locked and loaded, and even a fire pit. All we needed were people to feed! And there were none to be found. 

 

It felt like we were in a ghost town. Cars and bicycles occasionally rolled by on Silver Ave., but the only foot traffic were folks going in and out of Michael Thomas. None of them needed a meal. We asked them to spread the word and send anyone they knew, but for the first hour, nobody came. It was time to call up some help. 

Arlene spoke with Joseph P. from Albuquerque Community Safety (ACS). He offered to load up a batch of meals in his car and take them to ART stations, and more importantly, to have folks there give their neighbors a heads-up that more meals were available at Michael Thomas. The Snyder family packed up meals in their car and drove in search of the UNM Street Medicine crew. When they found out the clinic was closed, they offered meals to folks along Central Ave. I reached out to my BikeABQ colleague and social media sage Keith Stubbs. He posted an announcement on the BikeABQ socials. I put notices on the Discord channels for Strong Towns ABQ and New Mexico United and asked those communities to spread the word. And slowly but surely, the community began to respond. 

It started, fittingly, with The Pastor. He was both our first walk-up customer and the MVP of distribution. A man from around the way, The Pastor offered us blessings and banter in equal measure. He also offered to deliver meals to his friends and neighbors. He visited us at least ten times that morning, each time picking up two to four meals for delivery. The Pastor must have covered miles of Nob Hill on his rounds that morning. And in between The Pastor’s visits, there were others.

They came from the neighborhood solo or in pairs, having heard about us through one or another tendril of the grapevine. There was a mother and daughter who were happy to collect a meal and sit for spell. There were hungry UNM undergraduates who found our wares preferable to another ramen packet. There were two employees from the Lobo Bike Shop who brought meals back to their colleagues (riding pretty neat bikes built up from secondhand parts, too!). There were others like The Pastor doing meal deliveries for those who couldn’t make it over. And when we asked everyone how they heard about us, they said it was from this friend, or that neighbor, or one of those social feeds (most of which we hadn’t heard of). The community had responded.

            

Shortly before 11:00am, all 130-plus meals were gone. All that was left was a bit of coffee and the fire pit still burning. We indulged in a little relief that we wouldn’t have to pack up any leftovers. And we felt a lot of gratitude that we live in a community that still shows up when it counts.

A big and heartfelt thank you to Michael Thomas Coffee, the Team Nero Veloce Cycling Team, the Youth Dukes Track Club families, and so many amazing individuals who helped make this possible! We look forward to doing this again in 2026!