Shadia Abdulahi, right, gives a bottle of water Thursday to Ryan Mason during the Maine Community Integration Thanksgiving Feast at Kennedy Park at 120 Park St. in downtown Lewiston. Members of Maine Community Integration organized the fourth annual feast to feed vulnerable members of the community. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
LEWISTON — A boy in a red hooded coat walked as fast as he could Thursday through Kennedy Park in downtown Lewiston, his arms heaped high with cartons of food.
“Ma!” he yelled to a woman at the far end of the park. “Ma! Look what I’ve got!”
Meanwhile, in the gazebo at the park, a dozen people were hunkered down to escape the cold and driving rain. One woman who was wrapped in a pink blanket and wearing a wool hat askew on her head said it was the first time she had been warm all day.
Another man was standing in the middle of the gazebo and gnawing on a chicken wing and poking at a salad, a rather extravagant meal on an otherwise bleak Thanksgiving Day.
Tracy Banguninga passes a to-go box of hot food Thursday during the Maine Community Integration Thanksgiving Feast at Kennedy Park at 120 Park St. in downtown Lewiston. Members of Maine Community Integration organized the fourth annual feast to feed vulnerable members of the community. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
For several hours Thursday afternoon, a couple of different groups braved the icy rain to hand out food and warm clothing to those in need.
“About 85 people have shown up so far,” Abdi Abdalla, the assistant director of Maine Community Integration, said. “We’ve been giving away food and warm clothing — hats and blankets and stuff like that. Some of them also take Narcan. We give them that in case they need it to save a life.”
Narcan is a brand name under which naloxone, a medication that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, is sold.
Representatives of Maine Community Integration have been gathering at Kennedy Park at 120 Park St. every Thanksgiving Day for the past six years to help the needy. Some years, Abdalla said, as many as 200 people have turned out for help. He guessed that this year, some who are homeless chose to hunker down somewhere dry and stay out of Thanksgiving Day’s nasty weather.
Many people, however, turned out for hot food, according to Shadia Abdulahi, the chief outreach coordinator at Maine Community Integration. She said the group’s supply of food was bolstered by neighbors who donated to the cause.
“They baked pies and they brought turkeys over,” Abdulahi said. “And then they helped to hand out the pies and everything.”
Krystal Ryan looks back Thursday at Robert Carroll after receiving a hot meal during the Maine Community Integration Thanksgiving Feast at Kennedy Park at 120 Park St. in downtown Lewiston. Members of Maine Community Integration organized the fourth annual feast to feed vulnerable members of the community. Ryan said food is hard to come by when living on the streets. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
Amran Osman of Generational Noor was part of the effort to collect clothes — jackets, sweaters, gloves and other gear for cold weather — from the community. The clothing was assembled at the gazebo, and anybody who needed something was welcome to choose from the offerings.
“We were also able to give blankets to a lot of people who were cold,” Osman said. “We’d just go up to them and say: ‘Hey! Do you need a blanket?’”
Generational Noor worked with Maine Community Integration to procure food that was dished out from beneath a small tent that protected servers and diners from the nonstop drizzle.
Dean Knights and Paige Murray bring food Thursday to members of Maine Community Integration during its Thanksgiving Feast at Kennedy Park at 120 Park St. in downtown Lewiston. Knights and Murray made and handed out meals to those in need. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
By 2 p.m., the rain had not relented. Nonetheless, many of those who had come for hot food and warm clothing chose to stay and mingle. They stood shoulder to shoulder at the gazebo, with the many volunteers serving food and managing the clothing giveaway.
Many local young people were among the volunteers, Osman said.
“A lot of the youth came out to volunteer,” she said. “It’s amazing just to see them giving back to the community like this.”
Fatuma Roble, left, Halima Ali, second from left, Salma Salad, second from right, and Safiya Mohamed talk Thursday during the Maine Community Integration Thanksgiving Feast at Kennedy Park at 120 Park St. in downtown Lewiston. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
