Article from the Topeka Capital Journal:
Grant Cushinberry, for so long synonymous with Topeka's Community Thanksgiving Dinner, isn't sure if he will make it to today's 39th annual event, which takes place from noon to 3 p.m. at the Kansas Expocentre's Agricultural Hall, near S.W. 17th and Tyler.
Beset by a series of strokes that date back to 1998, Cushinberry since 2001 has lived at the Eventide Convalescent Center, 2015 S.E. 10th.
He said he likes it there, as he is afforded the round-the-clock nursing care that he requires.
"I'm around a lot of good people," Cushinberry, 85, said earlier this week. "They treat me like royalty here.
"I can come and go as I please, but the folks here don't want me to go too far, in case I would have another stroke."
Cushinberry, who uses a walker to get around, said he would wait until today to see how he felt before deciding whether to attend the dinner that he helped organize for the better part of three decades.
He said he has many family members and friends who can drive him around town, but he guards against going out at night, lest he should fall and possibly break a hip.
"My bones are so old," he said, "that a screw wouldn't be able to hold them together if I took a fall."
Cushinberry, who worked at the Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center, said he got an idea for a Thanksgiving dinner when he would see people eating out of garbage cans while making runs in the trash-hauling business he owned.
"I said 'This shouldn't be, here in the land of plenty,' " Cushinberry recalled. "I asked people to help. Some said, 'No, I'm not going to give you anything. Let them get up and help themselves.'
"I said, 'I can't say much about that, but if you want to help, fine. If you don't, I appreciate that, too.' "
Cushinberry, who said he was a "good beggar," made the rounds and got donations for the dinner.
Born in the all-black town of Nicodemus in northwest Kansas, Cushinberry grew up in Hoisington.
He said he served as a combat medic in the Army in World War II and came to Topeka to attend the old Kansas Vocational School on the GI Bill. He later attended Washburn University.
But beyond his Thanksgiving dinner work, Cushinberry was known throughout the city for assisting children, taking them to the circus and ball games, and in the fall going to their schools and giving them a truckload of watermelons.
For years, he also ran "God's Little Half Acre" at 1835 S.W. Fillmore, where he would distribute free food, clothing, medical supplies and fresh produce.
A sign at God's Little Half Acre proclaimed the giveaway items were "for the needy, not the greedy."
"It was a labor of love," he said. "I wouldn't work that hard for money."
Cushinberry said it makes him feel good to think he may have helped someone along life's way.
"I was fortunate to have a good family -- a mother and dad," Cushinberry said. "They used to always say, 'Look around -- you can always find someone worse off than you. Help 'em if you can.'
"God put you on earth to help your fellow man, even if you have to go out of your way to help somebody."
One of Cushinberry's enduring legacies is his work in the Thanksgiving feast, which annually serves approximately 3,000 people from all walks of life.
"It's something that's needed," Cushinberry said. "People are still hungry."
The Community Thanksgiving Dinner traces its history to 1968 at East Topeka United Methodist Church, 708 S.E. Lime, when the late Addie Spicher and Pauline Johnson helped lead the original event.
"We served 69 people at the first dinner," said Johnson, who at 80 is volunteering at her 36th consecutive Thanksgiving event this year. "They would just drop in by the twos and threes. Some came in from the old Norva Hotel on 4th and Kansas. They could sleep there but they couldn't eat there, so they took a cab to the dinner."
The Thanksgiving dinner became a fixture at East Topeka United Methodist Church.
Johnson said that a few years later, Cushinberry started a Thanksgiving dinner at the Jordan-Patterson American Legion Post, at S.E. 15th and Adams.
Johnson said she approached Cushinberry and convinced him to merge his dinner with the ongoing one at the east-side church.
Starting in the early-1970s, the dinners took place at the old Mid-America Fairgrounds, S.W. 17th and Topeka Boulevard, Johnson said.
When some of the buildings there were torn down to make way for the Kansas Expocentre, Johnson said, the dinner was moved to other locations -- first to the National Guard Armory at S.W. 27th and Topeka Boulevard, then to the basement of the old Municipal Auditorium, 214 S.E. 8th, before finding a home on the Expocentre grounds.
Crowds would come to the dinners, and dozens of volunteers would help with food preparation, delivery, transportation and clean-up afterward.
That is the way it was then, and that is the way it is now.
"It's bringing the people together," Johnson said. "Just bringing the community together, where they can all fellowship in one room and give thanks to God for another year."
As always, this year's Thanksgiving menu will include turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, along with coffee and iced tea.
The event is now coordinated by the Community Thanksgiving Dinner Foundation, yet it continues in much the way it was early on.
The goal of feeding people a Thanksgiving meal and offering friendship and companionship remains intact.
Though Cushinberry isn't leading the charge as he once did, he hasn't been forgotten by those who carry on the dinner tradition.
"Grant was a good, loving man, who would help anybody in need," Johnson said. "He was always looking out for somebody."
Joe Marshall, 79, vice president of the Community Thanksgiving Dinner Foundation, said Cushinberry was helping to lead the annual event when he started volunteering in it about 20 years ago.
"Grant was a take-charge person," Marshall said. "He really got involved. He did a lot for people."
Cushinberry's son, Garry, 49, said the entire family is proud of his father and his contributions to the community.
He said his father's favorite Bible passage stated that "to whom much is given, much is required," and often said that in doing his good works, "he was just paying rent for being down here on earth."
Cushinberry said his father "was just glad to be able to be a messenger for God and to feed the hungry.
"If he fed one person, he felt that was what he was put down on earth to do -- and that was to help humankind."
Cushinberry said his father was always proud to call Topeka home because of the giving nature of the people who live here.
Cushinberry said his father was an example of what one person with one idea can do.
"He didn't sit back and say, 'I'm one person -- I can't do it,' " he said. "He had an idea and he followed through with it and got a lot of folks to help him out along the way, and Topeka's a better place for it.
"He used to always tell me we're all one race, and that's the human race. He not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk."
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