Can you imagine cooking for 25,000 people this Thanksgiving? That’s the number of people the Orlando Salvation Army will feed on Thursday.
It will take more than 11,500 pounds of food and 600 gallons of gravy to feed that large of a crowd, but that doesn’t slow down this event celebrating its 22nd year existence.
Jason Gronlund is the lead chef of the event, and has been in charge for more than two decades. Gronlund takes a whole week off of work from his full-time job as executive chef for Smoky Bones to make the meal happen.
“It was a little easier with the 27-year-old version of me than the soon to be 50-year-old version of me, but it’s all worth it,” said Gronlund.
Cutting the turkeys alone takes 10 hours and over 30 people. In total about 1,000 people will volunteer to make the meal happen. Most people will be served at the Salvation Army with other meals delivered throughout the area, and then there are meals prepared for people to take home.
Anyone and everyone can show up and eat at the event.
The meal will be served from 11:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Salvation Army located at 416 West Colonial Drive. Golden Corral is the main sponsor behind the event, and dozens of other community partners are helping to make it happen as well.
The Salvation Army of Orlando is also asking people to help donate to their food pantry. They started a new text campaign to help fight hunger in Orlando; to donate $10 to the cause all you have to do is text the message Helpings to 41444.