LAFAYETTE, La. — For Ema Haq, owner of Bailey's Seafood & Grill and Ema's Cafe, Thanksgiving is about that last part — giving.
For the last 31 years, Haq and his team have spent the last several weeks leading up to the holiday planning a white-table-cloth Thanksgiving meal for those without one.
“We can have wealth, we can have food, but what are we going to do after a certain point?” Haq told KATC. "I think we have a moral obligation, Almighty, we have to give to people in need we don’t want anyone to be hungry not in the United States."
Moving to Acadiana from Bangladesh at just 19 years old to attend the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Haq said Thanksgiving was once a concept foreign to him. His love for the holiday, he told us, started with an invitation from a friend.
"My first year of Thanksgiving, a friend of mine asks, 'What are you gonna do?' I said, 'There’s no school, I’m just gonna go home to my apartment and sleep late,'" he recalled. "I was working in the cafeteria, no school, didn’t have to work, he invited me to their house and of course, you’re a student, you always want food, so I showed up at their house and they picked me up. That was so special.”
A special feeling he said, he wants to continue for all of those going without during the holidays, for whatever reason. It's why he plans on giving out more than 1,500 free Thanksgiving meals Thursday, whether it be to guests at his restaurant or hand-delivered to those who can't make it themselves.
"We get a lot of calls from people in need of one or two meals, many of them elderly with no company, they are so appreciative," Haq told KATC. "We have so many people that don’t have, and they see on the television so many pictures of so much food, and not having any Thanksgiving meal, I just won’t even think about it, we have to give back, we want to make our community better."
But making deliveries across Acadiana to places like Erath, Delcambre, Opelousas, and New Iberia takes a team effort — something that can't be done without a team of at least 40 to 50 volunteers, plus Haq's own family.
Jeremy Whitman is one of those volunteers.
"I had more than enough time, my family didn’t even eat their dinner 'til 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, so I come here early in the morning, wrap up by two, then go and eat with my family," Whitman said.
Helping with the luncheon since '04, his reason is a simple one.
"There’s a lot of older people people stuck at their house, they can’t leave, and they really need some kind of love.”
As long as there are people in need of some warm food or some company, these efforts are some that won't be going away any time soon.
"I hope and I intend to do more than what I have done in the past, so keep me in your prayers, and thank Almighty for the opportunity that’s given to me and my family so we can do it in our very small way.”
If you or someone you know is in need of a meal this Thanksgiving holiday, you can head to 5520 Johnston St. in Lafayette between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
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