Zanzibar Soul Fusion chef John Andrews dishes up collard greens for Debbie McHamm Thursday during a Thanksgiving feast that four black-owned restaurants prepared for nearly 500 residents of the 2100 Lakeside Emergency Men's Shelter in Cleveland. With them are Zanzibar chefs Robert Williams, left, and Hugh Finch.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dinner included collard greens, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, corn muffins and peach cobbler for dessert.
And every bite was made from scratch.
"Nothing. Nothing came from a can," said Debbie McHamm, spokeswoman for the four black-owned restaurants that came together this Thanksgiving to serve dinner to nearly 500 men at the 2100 Lakeside Ave. homeless shelter and deliver 100 meals to others across the community.
The Cleveland and Shaker Heights restaurants did it with help from Olivet Institutional Baptist Church on Quincy Avenue, which lined up 250 or so volunteers to greet, serve, deliver and clean up.
"If I can come here and just give one person a little bit of hope, then I've done my job," said volunteer Kim McClamy, "Everybody should give back. We all have homes. We all have jobs. We're truly blessed."
Zanzibar Soul Fusion executive chef Tony Fortner, who also cooks for Angie's Soul Caf , prepared most of the food.
The two restaurants had help paying for the groceries from two spots, Opus and Jezebels Bayou.
The cooks roasted 30 turkeys, baked 1,300 corn muffins and boiled 45 pounds of macaroni to blend with milk, eggs and three kinds of cheese.
The idea for the feast came from Akin, the general manager of Angie's, Jezebels and Zanzibar.
"Angie's actually my mother," Akin said, " and she fed the homeless for 12 years."
That was from 1988 to 2000 at her restaurant at E. 55th Street and Euclid Avenue, he said.
"We just wanted to continue the legacy. One thing my mother always taught me is if you want blessings in this life, you have to give blessings back."
Angie wasn't at the shelter, run by Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, on Thursday. She stayed home to watch the grandchildren, so she never got to hear the men walking through the buffet line say "Thank you for coming" and "God bless you." And she wasn't there to see them wolf down pan after pan of the home-made cobbler she sent.
"I think it's great," said 40-year-old shelter resident Tony Sales, who hasn't been able to find work. "It'll be even better if we can have seconds."
Fifteen minutes later, he was working his way through another helping of everything.
"I love it," said Brad Taylor, kitchen manager at the shelter and the guy responsible for preparing Thanksgiving dinner in years past.
"But you know what's even better to me? It's an opportunity to demonstrate to those who have this misfortune in their lives, to say 'We know you're here and we want to be here for you in your moment of need.' "
Sweeter than both those things was the partnership he and the restaurants established. While preparing turkey and fixings, the establishments' owners learned about a shelter program that trains men in the culinary arts so they can find jobs in area restaurants.
The restaurant owners agreed to help.
"We believe in second chances," said Zanzibar chef Fortner. "So we're going to hire some of these guys."
The commitment, said Taylor, is the start of something big.
"It seems as though the prayers of a few have been heard and answered," Taylor said. "And it all grew out of this dinner."