JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – St. Vincent's HealthCare workers, taxi cab drivers and volunteers came together Thursday to delivery 700 Thanksgiving meals to families in need and people who were unable to spend the holiday with their loved ones.
A culinary team of chefs prepared more than 900 pounds of food for Meals and Wheels recipients -- 300 pounds each of turkey, sweet potatoes and cornbread stuffing.
"It feels great. I bring my family every year and it's been our tradition since I have been here. I bring my wife and kids and we just give back in the morning," said Jonathan Smith, executive chef at St. Vincent's Medical Center.
Theodore Richardson was one of the cab drivers who pickup food, instead of passengers, on Thanksgiving Day.
"I tell people, 'Until you don't know how it feels not to have a meal every day or miss a meal, you won't understand,'" Richardson said.
Richardson has volunteered every Thanksgiving holiday for the last 20 years and he doesn't plant to stop anytime soon.
"Meals on Wheels -- it's a Godsent blessing to the residences and I am happy to receive them," Mary Spidell said.
It's gratitude like Spidell's, as well as the bright smiles and compassion, that has kept the the movement of giving going for 23 years.
"We feel like sisters and brothers because we have bonded, because we bonded as one person," Richardson said.