Again this year, Representative Carlo Basile and a team of volunteers are stepping up to make Thanksgiving a little more cheerful for hundreds of low-income, homeless and elderly residents in East Boston.
Basile and a group of friends, family and an army of volunteers from across the neighborhood will provide a full Thanksgiving meal for residents that may have otherwise gone hungry at the Sacred Heart Church hall on Thanksgiving Day.
“This is what being an elected official is all about—helping people,” said Basile. “Each year it gets bigger and bigger with more people in need and more volunteers to help.”
Like years past, all the food was donated by Spinelli’s, which included salad, a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings and desert and coffee.
“It’s important to stop and think that while we may have plenty there are many people living in this neighborhood with very little,” said Basile. “Some come because they have very little money to have a meal for their family, some come because they have just lost their job and some come because they have no one to spend the holiday with.”
Basile said these are all things that we take for granted in life sometimes but when he sees the children of parents with a smile on their face inside the church hall he knows he and the group of volunteers have done something right.
“The kids are what really breaks my heart and there are times during the day I have to take a moment to collect myself because I hear all the stories of why these good people are here,” said Basile. “But at the end of the day I would not want to spend a Thanksgiving Day without them.”
Basile took a moment to thank all the volunteers and donors who he said will make the annual tradition a success.
“I could not do it without them,” said Basile. “We have people cooking, serving food, playing music and delivering meals to residents who can not make it down to the church…they are really the heroes of the day.”