Throughout the week of Thanksgiving, multiple Lexington and Nicholasville business owners gave back to their communities by providing free holiday meals.
On Nov. 20, a group of Nicholasville business owners gave away 150 turkeys to families in need for Thanksgiving.
Jacob Warren of Working Wrenches Diesel Repair Shop, DJ Chris Dedman of C. D. Productions, and Landon Marsh of Bubba Grub purchased the turkeys and gave them out to families gathered at Bubba Grub, starting at 7:00 p.m.
“I grew up always giving back. My family did a Christmas giveaway for toys, but for Thanksgiving, I wanted to start a turkey giveaway and just give back to my community. I’ve been blessed since being a young kid, of course, so I just wanted to give back and bless others since I’ve been blessed,” Marsh told LEX18, who interviewed each of the three business owners.
“I know a lot of the community can’t afford things and so it’s nice just to be able to help,” Warren said.
“It’s awesome that we can do this. I grew up not very wealthy, and I struggled, and I know what it’s like. In today’s times, it’s hard. Families are struggling. I saw something recently that said you need to make an extra $5,000 this year just to get by,” Dedman said.
“I’m kind of in between a little bit of everything. Unemployed, waiting on Social Security, trying to get her done,” Carletta Johnson, a recipient of one of the turkeys, told LEX18.
On Nov. 25, Lexington resident Zach Smith partnered with Hoang Duong, owner of the Asian cafe “The Wok,” to give away 1,000 meals to the Lexington community.
According to Smith, the duo have given out meals for multiple years, but 2023 marks the largest amount of meals they’ve provided for Thanksgiving, a large increase from the 725 meals they provided in 2022.
“We started with just kind of working out of our home kitchen, every year we would have a little bit extra food and we would just distribute that and it’s just kind of built up. All our friends want to pitch in and help and so when that happens we have more food. We wanted to do it legit and operate out of a kitchen,” Smith told LEX18.
Smith also said that he intends to organize similar events in the near future, and that he’s currently planning to do so for the 2023 Christmas season.