Bay Ridge Cares to deliver Thanksgiving meals to shut-ins

November 25, 2015 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Leaders of the group have posted this flier on social media sites to solicit suggestions on where to bring free Thanksgiving meals. Image courtesy of Bay Ridge Cares

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If you know someone, a friend or a neighbor perhaps, who will be all alone on Thanksgiving, contact the folks at Bay Ridge Cares.

Members of the charity organization will be delivering free meals to the elderly, disabled and others who don’t have anyone to spend the holiday with and don’t have the means to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Justin Brannan, a founder of Bay Ridge Cares, said the group is looking for suggestions from residents on where to delivery turkey dinners on the big day. Residents can contact the group via email at [email protected].

“We’re cooking the meals ourselves and we’ll be delivering them on Thursday. We have volunteers helping us chop celery and doing a lot of the pre-cooking work,” Brannan told the Brooklyn Eagle on Tuesday.

Tom Perone, a Bay Ridge Cares board member who is the owner of the Pig Guy Restaurant, is planning the special Thanksgiving menu. The group has already received dozens of suggestions from people eager to see their elderly neighbors receive deliveries.

“Most of our outreach has been in the Bay Ridge, Dyker and Bensonhurst area. But we also received a couple of requests from downtown Brooklyn. If someone needs a meal, we’re going to deliver it to them,” said Brannan, a special assistant to City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina.

There is a cut-off point, however. Anyone seeking a meal should contact Bay Ridge Cares before Wednesday night. Brannan, who said he expected to deliver “a couple of dozen” turkey dinners on Thanksgiving, added that the project will benefit the meal deliverers as well as the recipients.

“It makes you feel good to do good things for people. It’s not just a food delivery. It’s also a visit. We’ll sit down with the person and keep them company for a while. The way to someone’s heart is through their stomach,” he told the Eagle.

Bay Ridge Cares, formed by Brannan and a group of his friends a few years ago, prepared and delivered hot meals to homeowners and recovery workers in neighborhoods devastated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. “We made and delivered 26,000 meals in the months after Sandy,” Brannan said.