By Gabrielle Williams | November 21, 2020 at 12:04 PM EST – Updated November 22 at 9:16 AM
WINNABOW, N.C. (WECT) – ‘Tis the season for giving. And this year, more people than ever need help through the holidays.
That’s something Chris and Amanda know very well. As the owners of The Kitchen Man in Winnabow, the couple has had a rough year themselves.
“We had about 18 employees, we’re at six now because there’s just not enough work to keep the doors open,” said Chris. “We try and it’s very struggling. I mean, some days, it’s tough to do. And some days, just got to put all that aside. And now being that it’s the holidays, we want to have a good time and friends and family and have a great meal. And we want that for other people too. So this is one of the reasons why we’re doing this.”
Last year, they gave away 75 turkey dinners to families in need. And because of the pandemic, they wanted to step it up.
“We wanted to continue on that,” said Chris. “Continue to help our families that are that are struggling. I know it’s a difficult time for everybody with the whole pandemic. And a lot of people don’t work. So that’s why we kind of went to a bigger number this year doing 500 of the turkeys.”
And even though they’ve had losses with their own business this year, they paid for every single turkey and fixing with their own money.
“This is something that we do out of pocket,” said Chris. “We don’t ask for any donations or anything like that.”
But getting enough turkeys, boxes of stuffing, green beans, corn, cranberries, and gravy for 500 people was tough.
“We got around to every supermarket,” said Chris. “This year, it was a little bit challenging because it was a two turkey limit per person. So it was extremely challenging to do this. we didn’t really think that that was going to happen. But we made it through. [Amanda] cried a few times. But it actually all worked out in the end. And again, this is something where you want to do it. That’s why we don’t ask for donations or anything like that.”
The Dabideen’s say through the good and hard times, community is what you need and that’s why they’re giving away the food.
“hTe community is what’s given us the motivation to keep going,” said Chris. “Just some days that we think about closing the doors. Like it’s that backwards. But when you think about all the stuff we’ve done, I mean our businesses, three, almost four years old, and we started in a little shop and now we got this huge facility with a big showroom and new machinery and all that fun stuff. We’ll try the weather it out.”
Copyright 2020 WECT. All rights reserved.