Great example of collaboration and energy all going toward the greater good of feeding people!
BATON ROUGE - A man who prepares meals for the community fridge in a small makeshift kitchen is now cooking in a more formal setting after a generous donation from a local business.
The last time WBRZ spoke with Britt Parnell was in October. He was filling the Baton Rouge community fridge every Sunday with homemade meals that he made on a portable stove top.
"Right now, I'm cooking in my living room on an induction burner because our kitchen doesn't have any counters," Parnell said.
Now he's cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the community in a professional kitchen.
That kitchen was donated by Counterspace, a bakery on Government Street. They're closed on Sundays and when owner Sarah Joy Hays saw Parnell's TikToks, she invited him into their kitchen.
"We've done give back days where we helped fund people who were making meals for the refrigerators and when I saw that and realized the trend was on Sunday and since were closed on Sundays and don't typically have staff in on Sundays I sent him an email and said, 'Would you like to come check it out?'" Hays recalled.
The decision to offer him the kitchen was a natural fit for Hays, who says she saw a perfect opportunity to support Parnell's efforts and help feed more people in the community.
"It's great to see there are people in our community that are looking for the opportunities to use what they have because we feel we have nothing to give and he's giving his talent of cooking and we get to give our resource of space," Hays said.
Sunday's dinner includes four massive turkeys. Parnell said he wouldn't have dreamed he'd be able to make this big of a meal.
"We don't have the fridge space at home to dry brine the turkeys. It would've taken multiple days to cook four turkeys in one oven. Yeah it's beautiful," Parnell said.
Parnell says Sunday’s donations will mark 500 meals that he's cooked for the community.