Record Crowds Gather for Free Meals : Thanksgiving: Restaurant owners and volunteers also turn out in large numbers.

Churches and charity groups reported record turnouts at Thanksgiving Day festivities across Orange County, as residents battered by recession crowded into community centers and restaurants for free food and companionship.

Robert Catalan, 34, a jobless sheet-metal worker, started on a 5-mile walk at 7:30 a.m. so he would not be late for a traditional turkey dinner being served on tables in the parking lot at La Casa Garcia Restaurant in Anaheim. He said he had slept the night in an abandoned car.

“I’ll get back up there again, I’m sure,” Catalan vowed.

In the meantime, he said, he was grateful to join about 5,000 people--including homeless, the working poor and the lonely--who were enjoying the sunshine, food and musical entertainment at what was probably the largest free Thanksgiving feast in Orange County.

All of the centers providing meals reported seeing more families whose breadwinners have lost their jobs, as well as the working poor who hope that one free meal this month will help them make ends meet.

“We are seeing a lot more women and children,” said Joe Furey, community organizer for the Orange County Rescue Mission.

Furey said that between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., the mission served about 2,000 Thanksgiving dinners, which was 750 more than last year.

In anticipation of the increased demand, more restaurants and community centers in all parts of the county this year joined in the preparation of meals, with much of the food and other fixings donated by companies and individuals.

Michael Kang, the 28-year-old co-owner of the posh Five Feet and Five Feet Too restaurants in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, donated 120 cooked turkeys and all the fixings to the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa.

According to organizers of the charitable Thanksgiving events, volunteers to help cook, carve and serve were also extraordinarily plentiful. Many of the volunteers were “regulars” who return each holiday, but others said they were pitching in for the first time.

At La Casa Garcia in Anaheim, more than 30 companies and 400 volunteers contributed to feeding the crowd. Men, women and teen-agers from all over the county manned the serving lines, scooping steaming dressing, potatoes and turkey onto a line of seemingly endless plates.

When the serving began at 11 a.m., Aaron Parker of Orange said he and other volunteers already had been at the restaurant since 8 p.m. the previous day cooking 400 donated turkeys.

“It takes everybody together to do what we do,” said Frank Garcia, owner of the restaurant.

His brother, Gus, said that last year Frank arranged to serve free dinners at three eateries that he owns. But because of the greater need this year, dinners were being served at all eight of Frank’s restaurants and fast-food outlets in Anaheim, Santa Ana and Tustin, Gus Garcia said. In all, he said, those locations were expected to serve 10,000 people.

Not everyone taking advantage of the free holiday meals was unemployed. Among the guests at La Casa Garcia were Daniel and Rosa Maria Adan and their 18-month-old baby boy. They live nearby and accidentally discovered the Thanksgiving celebration as they were walking to a self-service laundry.

Daniel Adan, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico 10 years ago and earns $4 an hour as an automobile mechanic, was pleased by the find.

“We live day by day, and this will make just one less meal I have to provide for,” he said in Spanish. What’s more, he said, the food was “very good.”

Some who came to dine were looking more for companionship than financial assistance. Leroy Aston, a 65-year-old retired carpenter from Buena Park, and his wife, Emily, said that although they could afford to cook turkey for themselves, they had been attending the La Casa Garcia free Thanksgiving dinner for three years.

Emily Aston said: “We have a son in Washington and a daughter in Hawaii and it leaves us lonesome, so we come here for the atmosphere.”

Like the guests, many of the volunteers show up regularly at charitable Thanksgiving dinners.

About noon at La Casa Garcia Restaurant, Allene Stillwell of Seal Beach was tenderly holding a 2-month-old baby so her mother could eat dinner in peace.

Stillwell said she had called the Orange County Chamber of Commerce to find out where she might be needed on Thanksgiving. She said she has spent her holidays helping others since she was a young girl, encouraged to do so by her parents.

This year, Stillwell was passing on that tradition. She had brought along her two grandchildren, 18-year-old Shannon Stillwell and 19-year-old Kimberly Stillwell, who were handing out napkins and rolls to the diners.

Manny and Ruth Siegall of Anaheim were also learning to be volunteers.

“Every year, we have hordes of relatives over. This year, they’ve got to find their own dinners,” said Ruth Siegall, a retired high school teacher.

“We find it sad seeing all the people who have to be fed,” she said. “It makes us very sad and very angry that our country allows people to be homeless and hungry.”

Wearing an apron, restaurateur Kang spent Thanksgiving supervising a cooking crew at a dinner organized at the Rea Community Center in Costa Mesa by the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen.

“It feels great,” said Kang, who closed his restaurants for Thanksgiving so he could personally help out at the center.

Kang said the experience made him see clearly the devastating effect of the recession on the people of even an affluent area like Orange County. Like other business segments, he said, the county’s restaurants have been laying off help because of declining patronage.

“I saw some people today who used to work for me as dishwashers and prep cooks,” he said. “I wish I had jobs to give to them.”