Volunteers Needed to Help Feed Thousands This Thanksgiving

“We called ourselves mad for doing it. That’s where the name 'Madsgiving' comes from, because that first year [Tajahi] said to me 500 meals and I figured, all right, let’s figure out a way,” recalls Danielle Cooke, one-half of the duo who have been feeding thousands of greater Denver’s homeless population on Thanksgiving since 2016.

Madsgiving started as a way for them to build community. As a chef, Tajahi has worked everywhere from Bacon Social House to Biju’s Little Curry Shop and Mother Tongue. Danielle is his partner in both life and business. In 2022, they started Supper Club at Freedom Street Social food hall in Arvada and recently, they partnered with Deuce Thevenow to start a roving dinner club set among ranches and farms on the Front Range.

But when the couple first moved here, they had no family and knew no one. “So when it came time for the holidays, we really wanted to cook, but we only knew our neighbors,” says Danielle. They made a big batch of meals and started handing them out to people on their block. Then, “it grew to a point where we weren’t just feeding people within our apartment complex, but [delivering meals] up and down Colfax, Federal, Park Avenue, Broadway. And we just met so many people who looked like us, who were one paycheck away or one paycheck past the limit.”

Tajahi emphasizes the point: “These men — they look like her granddad, like our uncles, our aunts, our cousins. I remember even feeding a kid that looked like my nephew. I’m not even playing, this kid looked like he was no older than seventeen — why are you on the street?!”

They saw a real need in their community — one that was surpassing their efforts, so they leveled up. For the first official Madsgiving in 2016, the Cookes set up shop inside Broadway Market with seventeen of their friends and supplemented food donations with their own money. That year, they reached their goal, distributing 515 meals.

Last year, 500 volunteers helped to push out 13,036 meals.

One of the Cookes’ best traits, and the most obvious if you’ve spent more than ten minutes around either, is their ability to build and leverage community. Madsgiving wouldn’t be possible without their ability to encourage suppliers and vendors in the industry to donate, donate, donate.
“The first year, Shamrock gave us $200 worth of credit. Last year, they gave us almost $1,500 worth of food. Miller Farms donated. Redbird donated chicken. We had Stillman Meats; they donated six pigs,” Tajahi says. But not everyone was so generous. “I’m not going to call out any names…but we’ve heard a lot of no’s. A lot of no’s from surprising individuals, and I was surprised that so many people who had the capability of genuinely helping, having the resources to help, the capabilities, they just said bluntly, ‘No.’”

Along with produce and meat, the Cookes need kitchen space and volunteers to pull off Madsgiving. Historically, they’ve used Broadway Market and Zeppelin Station. This year, they’ll be at Cherry Creek Innovation Campus, “a huge facility out in Dove Valley. ... They’re not just giving us their facility, but also giving us their students, who are going to help cook a majority of the proteins this year,” says Tajahi.

Cooking starts around 10 p.m. the night before Thanksgiving, after the spaces have been cleared out following normal business hours. All night, volunteers prep, cook and assemble boxed meals of traditional Thanksgiving food such as roasted turkey, roasted chicken, pulled pork, bone stock soup, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, green beans, and cranberry sauce.

Then volunteer delivery drivers drop the meals off all around the city. "We’ll be sending meals to Aurora this year, we’re going to be sending meals to downtown Denver. We feed the Volunteers of America, battered women’s shelters. We are providing meals to Urban Peak shelter as well,” explains Tajahi. “And to Pastor Dwayne Johnson — his flock work as the foot soldiers. ... They go into the underpasses, under the bridges, they’re crawling underneath every hiding space they can find and go above and beyond to make sure everyone is truly fed.” Drivers will also be dispatched as far as Poudre Canyon, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins.

This Thanksgiving, the Cookes are hoping to provide 20,000 meals. To accomplish that, they need volunteers for prepping, cooking, cleanup and delivery along with donations from any and all food suppliers.

The need has never been greater: Both Tajahi and Danielle say the homelessness issue has gotten noticeably worse over the past few years. The data backs them up: The Denver metro area homelessness rate has increased by 10 percent, to a record 9,977 people, according to the Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative.

“As much as the city and the mayor and the government are trying to find housing for these individuals, the percentage has only gone up since they have tackled this conversation. ... Now I think all of us are genuinely trying to do good, I just think some of us can step up and do more. Regular citizens, like us. We’re not a nonprofit. [We’re] just literally a chef and his wife," Tajahi concludes.

Those interested in volunteering for Madsgiving can learn more and sign up via the form on msbettyscooking.com. There is also GoFundMe set up for donations.