Hundreds line up for Salvation Army’s annual Thanksgiving meal

“It’s a blessing,” said Bruce Bingo as he waited outside the Salvation Army for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.

Bingo, who has several major health problems, has been unable to work and has been on and off the street throughout the years because of his heart issues. He recently ran into an even worse streak of luck after his truck, which was serving as his home, burned up.

And yet, he found a reason to smile.

“I’m grateful we have a community like Bradenton,” Bingo said. “I’ve been here 40 years and have been coming to the Salvation Army off and on for 38 of them. I’m not in a good situation in life, but I have Bradenton. It’s nice and it’s my home.”

Inside the cafeteria, volunteers Christine and Craig Drinko were greeting the guests at the door and helping them find seats. It wasn’t their first time volunteering, but it was their first for the Salvation Army.

“We just wanted to give back to the community,” Christine Drinko said. “And we’ll definitely be back to help. We are already talking about helping out at Christmas.”

Craig Drinko is a teacher and he sees the need every day in some of his students. It’s partly why the couple volunteers for the Boys and Girls Club and why they gave up their Thanksgiving to help out at the Salvation Army. He was impressed with what he saw.

“It’s definitely well organized,” Craig Drinko said. “They’ve been doing this for a lot of years and they definitely know what they are doing.”

Melissa Fernandez, volunteer special events coordinator, said 30 volunteers came this year.

“Everyone’s just really excited to be able to help their neighbors, homeless veterans and the homeless that live in the community,” Fernandez said.

The man behind hundreds of pounds of food to feed 500 people is Tom Giglio.

“We put in about two and a half weeks for this hour and a half of dinner today,” Giglio said. “And it was fun. We had a lot of fun.”

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Salvation Army officials put out a call to the community because were well short on the 200-turkey goal. They were also short on sides because they planned to serve 300 pounds of stuffing, 275 pounds of mashed potatoes, 225 pounds of green beans, 100 pies, 40 pounds of cranberry and 700 dinner rolls.

“I want to thank the community for helping us to make this even possible,” Giglio said.

This story was originally published November 23, 2017 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Hundreds line up for Salvation Army’s annual Thanksgiving meal."