Legacy Tables' second annual Community Thanksgiving Feast included chicken and dressing, ham, yams, macaroni & cheese, greens, green beans and rolls.

Food is good for the soul, but soul food is a legacy for one Tyler woman.

“My mother and my grandmother … always gave back,” said Loretta Oliver, owner and CEO of Legacy Tables restaurant. “It may have not been monetary, but it was always with food.”

Helping her grandmother, who was head cook at the historic Plaza Hotel downtown, with kitchen duties as a young child inspired Oliver to cook. Her ambitions created a restaurant in Tyler called Legacy Tables.

“I grew up in this community,” Oliver said. “I’ve been here for over 55 years and wanted to give back to the community that I grew up in.”

On Wednesday, Oliver and a team of volunteers did just that as Legacy Tables hosted its second annual Community Thanksgiving Feast.

The Community Thanksgiving Feast was born last year, feeding nearly 500 people.

“When we opened the doors (last year) at 11 o’clock, the line was wrapped around the corner,” Oliver said.

This year, the free feast was hosted at Ceaugry and WB Houston Center in Tyler. The menu included chicken and dressing, ham, yams, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, green beans and rolls, well as dessert and drinks.

“It’s a great effort to give back to the community, especially around the holiday time, Thanksgiving season when so many are without,” said Smith County Pct. 1 Justice of the Peace Derrick Choice. “So it’s a great effort on Miss Loretta Oliver’s part to give back to the community and to get folks like us together to help support it financially, and those who are coming out to volunteer to help serve.”

Choice was among those at the feast who donated time to help with the effort, through setting up tables or serving plates. Other volunteers included the Tyler chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha and Alpha Kappa Alpha, Custom Truckers, the Legacy Tables staff, and a young group of volunteers, ranging from 5 to 19 years old.

“It makes me feel great to see the community come together to help the community,” Choice said. “A time during Thanksgiving is a time to give back and show people love that you care for and to offer them a meal to help them along their way, especially during the Thanksgiving season.”

Whether it’s merely setting up the tables or handing out sodas and plates of Thanksgiving soul food, every effort made to help the community is time not wasted.

“I have customers who sometimes don’t have family or won’t receive a Thanksgiving meal,” Oliver said. “We wanted to give back to those folks who, in other words, would not have one.”

For those who might be struggling during the giving season, Oliver said to be grateful for what you do have.

“Just keep the faith,” she said. “Whether it’s little or not, be thankful.”