Holiday in Hampton Park

At the Thanksgiving banquet in Hampton Park on Thursday there wasn't much difference between the hundreds of people giving help and the hundreds of people receiving it.

There were some holey shirts on both sides of the serving line. Both volunteers and those in need came to the annual Without Walls Ministry feast to fill their stomachs and souls and left feeling a little better than before.

Churches that form the ministry have been helping the needy with a Thanksgiving meal for years, but it was the third time the meal was served on Thanksgiving Day in Hampton Park. About 500 people volunteered, just as many people as those there for the meal.

"It's amazing to me," Rev. Gordon Cashwell, Without Walls Ministry director, said surveying the crowd. "People are hungry to do something like this."

Mary Grace, of James Island, volunteered at the banquet for the first time Thursday. She and her two sons, Hunter, 11, and Ethan, 6, used to do the same in her former home in Alaska and heard there was a need for volunteers at the park.

"It's a good positive experience for me and them," Mary Grace said.

The Graces were among the new faces on both sides.

Ricky Johnson spent last Thanksgiving in Augusta, Ga., with his mother. This year he ate in the park.

"I'm just here to be with my family, the homeless people," Johnson said. The out-of-work plumber said he broke six bones in his foot and was living in an area homeless shelter.

"I'm just out here blessing everybody," he said.

Along with the meal, people helped themselves to prayers, Bibles, coats, clothing, groceries, music and activities.

Cashwell planned the first Hampton Park event three years ago, only two weeks before the holiday. Last year, Cashwell's Hope Assembly Church of God, Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church in Mount Pleasant, and Emanuel Baptist Church of James Island formed Without Walls Ministry to take church outside sanctuary walls and break down the barriers between individual churches.

The non-profit now heads the organization of the Thanksgiving banquet.

Tawana Thomas, who lives down the street from the park with her five children, has come to each celebration. She and her sister planned on having another meal later Thursday but said it wouldn't be much.

"This is for my kids," Thomas said. "I wanted them to be thankful for the things they have and to be out here enjoying themselves."