Good Samaritans deliver holiday meals to those searching for work on Thanksgiving
For some families, the Thanksgiving holiday is a time to gather around the table with loved ones and eat a hefty meal. For others, this may just be a dream.
For years, a group of undocumented migrants, recovering addicts and people fighting homelessness have stood on the corner of Colfax Avenue and Dayton Street looking for work. Many of them are unable to get a job due to their circumstances. So, they depend on things like helping move furniture for a few dollars or even cleaning someone's home.
Their daily goal is just to make enough money to survive the day, feed their families and get back to the ground the very next day.
The hustle doesn't stop on holidays for them. These people show up to the same area seven days a week, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., searching for work.
This Thanksgiving Day, some laborers were just hoping to make a couple of dollars to feed their families a nice meal. While others, try to gather enough to pay for their motel or put gas in their cars.
"For me, it's surviving, some days there's no jobs and you have to sit down and wait," Crystal Sanchez said.
Sanchez is a recovering addict, who spent the holiday hoping to make some money.
"We are waiting for a job to show up and if there is a job we go, we come back and we get another job and it keeps going all day," Sanchez added.
But on this Thanksgiving Day, it was fairly quiet.
"Sometimes you make enough money to eat for the end of the night, sometimes you don't, but there is still that hope that there is something," Sanchez said.
So, she waited. Even though there was little to no work, she had a feeling staying in the area might help her.
An hour later, a couple of trucks filled with Thanksgiving meals stop by.
"I was once in their shoes, I didn't have food, I didn't have a shelter and now god blessed me and I am just trying to do the same for other people," Garcaa said.
Hassel Garcaa, a good Samaritan and a member of a church in Aurora, migrated from Guatemala to the U.S. six years ago. As someone who also spent the holidays looking for work once, he felt it was important to pay it forward.
"Thank God I am able to bless other people," Garcaa said.
Fulfilling a mission to serve others on Thanksgiving Day.
"You're not going to go hungry out here, there's a lot of support groups that come out here and help people," Sanchez added, feeling grateful.
