While many are preparing for a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, the nonprofit Community Agenda for Regained Empowerment United States/Tanzania put its own spin on the holiday, offering up food for free during its AfriGhanistan Thanksgiving Lunch last Friday.

The organization has operated a program for over a year where food from African and Afghan cultures are shared with the public. CAREUSTZ founder William Mkanta said the Thanksgiving lunch was a way to show gratitude to the community for continued support.

“Being a time where we have this spirit of holiday, and especially this forthcoming holiday of Thanksgiving, we thought we can bring back our clients, our customers, our patrons, and offer them a Thanksgiving meal as a way of thanking them for being a part of our organization,” Mkanta said.

The lunch was free and open to the public at SOKY Marketplace’s Historic Venue on 7th. The food prepared was a fusion of cuisine prepared by Bowling Green women in the city’s African and Afghan cultures.

On the African side of the menu was lao, a dish consisting of rice mixed with meat, a flat bread known as chapati and samosas, triangle-shaped bread pockets filled with beef which Mkanta compared to Hot Pockets.

The Afghan dishes included chicken karahi, a samosa-similar item called bolani which was filled with potatoes and other vegetables and fufu.

The food program CAREUSTZ does is part of the organization’s larger Women Empowerment program. Throughout the year, the food is sold to the public and the women who prepare it get to keep the proceeds.

Mkanta said the women in this program prepare the food in a communal fashion, and helps members of the migrant community cope with various trauma from their past.

“In most of our programs, we are doing some trainings on mental health to help them cope with the trauma experiences that they had from where they came from,” he said. “So this space where they can cook, where they can practice their culture, (where) they can mingle together is part of the healing program.”

As Christmas approaches, CAREUSTZ is planning a toy drive in Bowling Green’s migrant communities. Mkanta said this will take place around the middle of December.

“We are now in the process of collecting these toys and other things for the children, and come that time, we’re going to distribute directly into their homes,” he said. “We are not going like to congregate in a place, but we’re going to their homes, knock the doors and distribute some toys for the kids.”