Volunteer At Food Giveaway Remembers Lean Thanksgivings: 'I See Me'
(CBS) -- In Chicago's Washington Heights neighborhood, a community center distributed Thanksgiving groceries to those in need.
One of the volunteers was there early Wednesday morning. She tells CBS 2's Jim Williams she knows what it's like to wait in line for a holiday meal.
Outside the Paul Hall Community Center, they waited in the cold rain for a bag of food and received even more from Patricia Smith.
"When I smile and give that person that food, they smile back at me," she says.
Smith has volunteered here for years at Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve, when lines have gone around the block.
Williams asks: "When you hand somebody a bag of food, what do you see?"
"I see me," she replies. "I see me standing in line. I see me crying."
Back when Smith's three children were young, when they had little to eat, Bishop Paul Hall and his church were always generous.
"If it had not been for Bishop Hall helping me, I don't know where my children would be," she says. "I'm here because I'm paying back what he gave me."
Today, Smith's children are grown and doing well. And so is she, working as a crossing guard and making the holidays brighter for people like Terrill Andu.
"It's always a blessing to see good people doing good things," Andu says.
Patricia Smith said her birthday is Christmas Eve. There's nowhere she'd rather be than the Paul Hall Center handing out food and toys.