The Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center hosted a food distribution event Thursday in South Dallas. "Center Table Fall Harvest" included food boxes and turkey vouchers for 500 cars.
"It's a blessing," one woman in line said. "More than anything, especially in this time right now going through the pandemic."
Dirk Nowitzki was among volunteers handing out boxes of food.
"He's really out helping. That's amazing," the woman picking up food said as she saw Nowitzki carrying a box to a car. "This is beautiful. Look at all this. I wasn't expecting this at all."
Center Table Fall Harvest is a collaboration of the North Texas Food Bank, Dirk Nowitzki Foundation, Mark Cuban Foundation, the Heroes Foundation and McDonald's Owner/Operators of North Texas. The event was open to people who live in south Oak Cliff and southern Dallas County.
This is the second Thanksgiving Jared Chenevert, owner of the Bearded Chef Cajun Cuisine, has volunteered at the Mark Cuban Heroes Center.
"Instead of being a holiday, this has become the norm for us," he says. "Thanksgiving is no different from a Saturday in September. If we're able to help, we're able to help."
Despite the ongoing need, Chenevert says the pandemic has led to different non-profits working more closely together and given them the ability to work together more quickly and more consistently.
"I think the beautiful part about it is that, at the Center, we've become a family," he says. "The extension out to the community has just been the true blessing of it all."
Chenevert says the basketball center has become a hub where kids can get hands-on experience by growing food and also taking cooking, arts and other classes.
"It's really become a family," he says. "This is an extension of the community. Kids, we look at them as our kids, and here we are today doing this once again."
Since the organizations started working together in May 2020, Center Table says volunteers have provided meals to 3,500 families, including 1,100 turkeys.
A second "Center Table Fall Harvest" event is planned Friday, December 17 at the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center:
1800 Bonnie View Rd.
Dallas, TX 75216
Organizers say they are also planning additional food giveaways, "pop-up experiences" and will make deliveries to senior citizens over the next two months.
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