Passionate about keeping the table set for tradition
The doors at Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe closed in 2015, but the huge Thanksgiving feast that the LoHi restaurant put on for Denver’s hungry lives on at a Lakewood vocational high school, where the tradition has been updated with organic ingredients and logistical help from UPS.
Volunteers and students led by Joshua Olsen, who teaches an urban agricultural program at Warren Occupation Technical Center, have been working for days in the school kitchen to ready pans of greenbean casserole, root-vegetable studded stuffing, turkey and gravy.
Olsen was a chef and partner at The Squeaky Bean when the farm-to-table restaurant, which got its start next door to Rosa Linda’s, began hosting the holiday feast after the Mexican cafe shuttered. When The Squeaky Bean closed in June, Olsen decided to continue feeding the hungry on Thanksgiving.
It is no small feat following in the footsteps of the Aguirre family, which served an estimated 30,000 Thanksgiving meals to poor people over 30 years.
“It is just ingrained in my heart to feed people,” Olsen says of taking on the daunting logistical task of preparing and distributing thousands of meals in one day. “Everybody is hungry, and that is one of the main things we are fighting in the world.”
On Monday, about 20 culinary students from Warren Tech and other volunteers sliced and diced piles of butternut squash, sweet potatoes and other vegetables and pulled cooked turkey from bones in the spacious kitchen, where culinary arts are taught.
Plastic tubs filled with sliced vegetables were turned into casseroles, and shreds of meat were piled into aluminum pans.
“It is nice to be invited to help people in need,” said Warren Tech chef instructor Joachim Schaaf, 54, as he strained turkey stock for the gravy.
Olsen opened the door of a walk-in refrigerator to reveal more food.
Two walk-ins, each measuring 8 feet by 12 feet, “will be full of prepared product by Tuesday,” he said
Olsen, 35, grew up in North Dakota in a family that has close ties to the land and a tradition of volunteerism. His grandfather worked with farmers baling hay, threshing grain and doing other jobs, and his grandmother was a cook on a train that traveled through the state feeding farm workers during harvest.
The Squeaky Bean grew its own vegetables and herbs, and in 2014, Olsen reached an agreement with Warren Tech to develop a 3-acre farm on school property. He put in place a program to educate students in agriculture and culinary arts, and the farm provided The Squeaky Bean and other Denver restaurants with organically grown produce.
The Squeaky Bean’s 2015 Thanksgiving dinner, called “The Feed,” was prepared in Warren Tech’s kitchen and then shipped to the restaurant in Lower Downtown. Last year, “The Feed” distributed meals carried by a well-organized fleet of vans, cars and pickup trucks to 6,000 elderly shut-ins, needy families and homeless people across the Denver area.
This year, Olsen and his volunteers are preparing all 5,400 meals at the school.
The logistics are daunting, but the use of Warren Tech’s kitchen will make the task easier, Olsen said. “This year, we will really be able to set the tone for the future in that we found a solid home.”
About 240 volunteers, including Olsen’s parents, are involved in the effort.
Sixty drivers will deliver meals to Denver Housing Authority residents and other homes where residents have signed up for the meals, as well as to motels and hotels along Colfax Avenue.
For the first time, drivers will have routes developed