Thanksgiving’s ‘Largest Potluck’ Is Still Feeding Those Who Don’t Have A Home To Go To, 26 Years Later

For the past 26 years, Barry Walker and his family have been waking up on Thanksgiving morning to put the finishing touches on their homemade holiday meals.

But instead of digging in at dinner, Walker’s nonprofit Gobble Gobble Give packages the food up and serves it to people who don’t have a home to go to on Thanksgiving.

What started as Walker feeding a handful of his unhoused neighbors in Echo Park has blossomed to thousands of volunteers serving tens of thousands of meals across the country.

This year, Gobble Gobble Give is hosting Thanksgiving events at five locations in L.A. and Orange counties:

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• Blessed Sacrament Church 6657 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028(Entrance via Cassil Place & Sunset Blvd.)
• Arts District Brewery 830 Traction Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90013
• Santa Monica Airport 3201 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, 90405
• Moongoat Coffee 7200 Acacia Ave. Garden Grove, CA. 92841
• Crenshaw District - Consolidated Board of Realtist 3725 Don Felipe Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90008

Walker, the executive director of the organization, calls it the “world's largest potluck party.” Every volunteer is asked to bring a dish — grandma’s famous stuffing, fancy garlic mashed potatoes, and of course, plenty of turkey. Beyond Meat also donated more than 5,000 burgers so Gobble Gobble Give can cook up a huge vegan barbecue for the unhoused.

All of the food is loaded onto a conveyor belt of tables so it can be packed into to-go containers. Unhoused people can pick up a meal from one of those five locations, but Gobble Gobble Give also goes out into the community to personally deliver the holiday dinner.

“We hit the railroads, we hit the riverbeds, we hit all the freeway underpasses,” Walker told LAist. “A lot of the people that we meet unfortunately don't know that it's Thanksgiving. We let them know that it is, and that we haven't forgotten about them.”

Gobble Gobble Give delivers clothes and toiletries, too – Walker said they bought about 5,000 new pairs of socks and 800 jackets to hand out this year. The volunteers are also giving out sleeping bags, backpacks, can openers, and hundreds of Cup Noodles.

Walker said he’s seen L.A.’s unhoused population grow in the decades he’s been serving these Thanksgiving meals. He’s aware of the billions of dollars that have been spent to combat the crisis, but he said Gobble Gobble Give doesn’t see the progress.

Walker doesn’t claim to have the answers, but he said seeing the volunteers cooking, dressing, and serving the warm, homemade meals to their unhoused neighbors proves to him the needle is moving a little bit.

“It’s very complicated,” he said. “Until we figure it out, we're gonna keep feeding them.”