I rolled into Munfordville, Kentucky, carried there not by plan or prophecy but by that peculiar instinct a traveler acquires after too many nights in gas-station parking lots—a tug in the gut that says turn here, slow down, breathe the air. 

Munfordville is more whistle-stop than city: three intersecting streets, a courthouse that looks as though it’s holding its breath, and a population smaller than most suburban high-school graduating classes. From the driver’s seat of Josie, the place resembled Mayberry if Mayberry had lost its barber shop and half its optimism.

Nothing in particular summoned me except the calendar. Thanksgiving crouched ten days down the road, and the thousand dollars of Hope-and-Generosity cash I kept tucked in the glove box burned hotter than a coal stove. I’d been slipping the bundles to unsung saints across the heartland—farmers, foster grandmas, a pastor that served as an unwitting front man for a disaster-wracked town—one snap-banded stack at a time. But the mileage and the monotony had left me itchy for something bolder, something that would tilt the whole day.

The idea came simple and sudden: buy every frozen turkey in town and hand them out, no questions asked. If Hope and Generosity were worth their salt, they ought to be able to dress a few Thanksgiving tables.

I pulled Josie into the lot of the employee-owned IGA just after the noon. The storefront held a sun-faded mural of pumpkins and wheat stalks. Inside, refrigeration units hummed with the measured weariness of men who’ve worked third shift too long. I asked for the manager and waited fifteen minutes between end-caps of evaporated milk and canned sweet potatoes. When she finally arrived, she scanned me the way a barn cat sizes up a stranger at the milk pail—equal parts curiosity and mistrust.

“Good afternoon,” I began, extending a hand and the best grin I could muster after two hundred road miles. “Name’s Brock Meeks. I’m on a little journey called the Hope & Generosity Tour.” Her expression said pshaw before she even opened her mouth.

“I’m not here to sell you anything,” I hurried on. “Matter of fact, I’d like to buy something from you—in bulk.”

“How bulk?” Arms folded, one brow cocked.

“A thousand dollars’ worth of frozen turkeys. Every bird you’ve got in the freezer, plus whatever you can pull from the back room or borrow from the next truck. Then I’d like to give them away, right here at your registers.”

Silence. Somewhere deep in the store a produce clerk dropped a cantaloupe; it hit the floor with a dull thunk that echoed down the aisle like punctuation.

“I’ll have to call headquarters,” she said at last.

“Headquarters?” I blinked. “Ma’am, I’m literally handing you a stack of twenties. Isn’t that the dream? Cash, no chargebacks, no coupons?”

She studied me; the fluorescent lights put hard white half-moons in her eyes. “We still need product on the shelves when folks come back tomorrow, sir. Thanksgiving’s coming.”

“That’s the point,” I said, softer now. “We can make tomorrow for a lot of people.”

But policy is a trellis that good intentions seldom climb. She promised to phone her superiors, took my card, and ushered me out with an apologetic smile that never reached her eyes. I spent the afternoon nursing burnt coffee in Josie’s jump seat, waiting for a call that never came. When I rang back, she answered with the voice of someone already braced for fallout: “Headquarters says no.”

Fine. If generosity couldn’t squeeze through the front door of the IGA, I’d find a side window.

On the edge of town sat a squat cinder-block Save-A-Lot, the kind of store that stocks motor oil four feet from condensed soup because floor space is democracy and everything pays the same rent. I expected another corporate blockade, but the manager—square-jawed, sleeves pushed up—heard me out without flinching. He summoned Dalton, the meat guy, a farm-boy philosopher whose forearms were roped with muscle and freezer burn.

“So you want every turkey in the building,” Dalton said, eyes bright.

“Yes, sir. Then we stand at the end of the checkout counter and give ’em away.”

Dalton scratched his chin, grinned, and said the words I hadn’t realized I was desperate to hear: “Well, shoot—why not?”

We wheeled pallet jacks to the back, heaved shrink-wrapped birds from wire cages into shopping carts. Thirty on the sales floor, another thirty thawing in the walk-in, birds bigger than bowling balls. The manager began ringing them up. The register screen climbed: until the tally hit nine-hundred-seventy-four dollars and some change with the last bird. I handed him a stack of twenties. “Here’s a $1,000,” I said, and felt something inside me click into alignment—like an engine catching after a long crank.

We stacked the turkeys in three shopping carts and waited. The first taker was a grandmother with paper-thin skin and a cart full of store-brand ramen. She eyed the birds, then me, then the birds again as though expecting a punchline. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch, ma’am. We’re just saying thanks.”

Tremor in her hands. She chose a twelve-pounder like it might hatch. “Bless you,” she whispered, voice small as a sparrow.

Word spread fast. Customers left the checkout, wheeled back to the turkey mountain, and left again smiling like kids with contraband. A burly road-crew worker lifted a bird high over his head and whooped loud enough to rattle the aisle. A young mother clutched hers to her chest, tears tracking her cheeks. A man with hands as big as hams bear-hugged me. “You’re doing a great thing, bless you,” he said. An older woman stepped up along side and in a voice softer than a spring mist said, “without your gift, I was afraid we’d have to eat Thanksgiving out of a can.”

Not everyone applauded. One woman, perfume sharp as vinegar, wrinkled her nose. “These the cheap birds? I need at least twenty pounds.” I shrugged, handed her the biggest I had, and she huffed out the door. Generosity doesn’t always land soft, but it lands.

Inside an hour the turkeys dwindled to a single frost-blistered hen. I gave it to a kid in a letterman jacket whose ears reddened when he tried to say thanks. We high-fived, breath visible in frozen turkey. 

Outside, dusk settled like a hen on her clutch. I lingered near Josie and let the scene percolate: townspeople staggering under the weight of birds twice the size of last week’s grocery budget, kids dragging plastic-wrapped drumsticks through the gravel because helping Mom was heavy and joy was light. Every face wore surprise, the kind money can’t buy because it’s forged in the instant between disbelief and delight.

Munfordville’s main drag runs only six blocks from the bridge over Green River to the limestone bluff where the old cannon points at nothing in particular. I ambled those six blocks, sneakers scuffing leaf-litter, letting the town seep in. A barber pole still turned outside the shop, though the barber himself had passed two winters ago. Across the street the feed store windows were clouded with dust and tape-X’s, a casualty of big-box economics. 

I ducked into a café for supper, ordered meatloaf because it really was the “blue plate special.” The waitress—hair piled in a hurricane of bobby pins—asked, “You that turkey fellow?” When I admitted as much she filled my coffee mug without charge.

While I ate, the door kept swinging on its cracked spring. Customers carried stories in behind them:

• “My sister swore somebody’d try to sell her a timeshare, but it was just a gentleman giving away supper.”
  
  
• “We’re frying turkey this year, first time since Daddy died.”
  
  
• “The Lord moves mysterious, but He don’t usually use a Save-A-Lot.”
  
  

Their words built like grace notes, then a chord that kept building, until the whole café hummed with it. I paid the check—tacked on a large tip because gratitude spends easy—and stepped back into the cold.

Night had nailed itself to the sky. Stars began to punch through like tacks in black velvet. Josie’s engine coughed once, then settled into her usual sewing-machine rhythm. I drove out to the county fairgrounds, found an unlit corner near the livestock barn, and parked. Heat from the day still curled off the engine’s tin; inside, straw smelled sweet and horsey. I boiled water on the camp stove, made some hot chocolate, and sat on the bumper sipping nostalgia.

And that was the moment a stray dog trotted up, ribs like barrel staves under brindle fur. He eyed me, eyed the cup, and sat. Conversation between species flowed: I told him about the turkeys, how hope is heavier than fear when wrapped in plastic and passed hand to hand. He listened, head cocked, then inched closer until his nose touched my foot. I tossed him a peanut-butter granola bar; he pounced on it with surgeon’s care. We watched the stars together, two drifters sharing silence. On the last sip, as if on cue, he rose, thumped his tail, and vanished.

Later, as Josie’s furnace heat faded and the night pressed its cold nose against the windshield, the silence invited questions I hadn’t bothered to ask.

Why turkeys?
Because a turkey sits center of a table, and a table sits at the center of a family. And family—however frayed—sits at the center of what keeps us from unraveling. I’d spent weeks handing out money to strangers, but sometimes cash feels abstract, bloodless. A turkey is tangible: weight in the crook of an elbow, frost stinging the forearm, promise thawing slow in a crowded fridge. 

Why here? Why now?
Because I was tired of being on the sidelines—parachuting into grief, scribbling notes, escaping before the aftershocks. Because generosity had begun to feel transactional, a ledger of giving and reporting. I needed a gesture too large for the journalistic notepad, something that couldn’t be footnoted away.

The dark hummed with the question that dogs every do-gooder eventually: Was this really altruism, or just another ego trick—me proving to myself I could tilt the day like a pinball machine and watch the lights flash?

I answered to the ceiling of the van, half-ashamed: maybe a bit of both. The older I get, the more I believe purity is for angels and daydreamers. Humans muddle motives. I decided I could live with muddled motives if it meant sixty-seven strangers carving meat they couldn’t afford..

Still, a pebble of doubt rattled the hollow tin can of my conscience. What good had I really done at the end of the day? There’s a school of thought that says real charity empowers rather than replaces. I spun that critique like a stone in my palm, turning it over for sharp edges. In the end I set it down. Folks didn’t look dependent when they left—just relieved. Relief is a kind of power too.

Another voice—this one suspicious, editor-sharp—whispered: Will you write about this and polish yourself up like a brass halo? Of course I will; ink is the only currency I’ve ever truly owned. But I vowed right then to write the blemishes alongside the shine: the first manager’s refusal, the one lady sniffing for a bigger bird, my own ego glowing like taillights in the rearview.

And then the biggest mother question, the one that’s always asked, whether given voice or not: Will any of this matter in a week, a month? Will those turkeys translate to long-term hope or just a single good meal in a season of scarcity? The honest answer: I don’t know. But I’ve come to suspect that goodness doesn’t always scale; sometimes it’s just a pulse, a blip on a monitor that reminds the patient the heart is still beating. Maybe tomorrow they’ll need another pulse. Maybe someone else will provide it—or maybe they’ll provide it for each other. Either way, I’m claiming this one a win.

I crawled into Josie’s bunk. The van’s lack of insulation let in every cricket scrape and pickup-truck whine from the highway, but beneath it all buzzed a quieter frequency: satisfaction, low and steady. Not pride—that’s too sharp an instrument. More like the ache in a farmer’s back after a harvest safely binned. A day’s work, honest and weighty.

Morning cracked open with a rooster from the next farmyard. I boiled more coffee and paged through the local weekly someone had left on the café counter. Before rolling east I swung by Save-A-Lot to thank Dalton and the manager once more. They were resetting the end caps, filling the gap my purchase had left. Dalton pointed to a pallet of new birds. “Truck came at five,” he said. “Looks like God’s got logistics covered,” he winked. 

I left Munfordville lighter by a thousand dollars, heavier by the kind of riches banks can’t ledger.

Driving away, I reflected on the day's events, it certainly wasn’t scripted. There were unexpected obstacles. Perhaps that was just the way of things.The road stretched out before me, the landscape yawning. I didn't know–didn’t care–where Josie and I would land next. For now, I was content to believe I’d spun up several Thanksgiving dinners where none might have been. Kindled a spark of hope. And that, I thought, was worth every twist and turn along the way.

In Dawson Springs, Kentucky, Jeff Winfrey met his crucible twice over when back-to-back tornadoes demolished his town.

First came the tornado of December 2021, that ripped through the town like a ravenous beast. Then, as if the universe hadn't had its fill, another tornado barreled in on a late May evening earlier this year, turning what was left into kindling debris and dust.

Jeff wasn't the guy from central casting chosen to be a community leader. Retired dentist and pastor of a small Primitive Baptist Church, he was content. "I'm a nobody from nowhere," he’ll tell you, shrugging off any notion of grandeur. But disaster drafts its own infantry, and Jeff got called up.

"The recovery is still ongoing," he told me in the small, neatly appointed office of his church. A church whose picture became the poster child for the horrendous tornado damage done, owing to the amount of destruction that had laid waste to its structure. A picture of the destroyed church played out on front pages of newspapers and in broadcasts across the nation. "It's still ongoing from the first one. We've still got a lot of people needing help that way." 

"I'm a nobody from nowhere," he’ll tell
you, shrugging off any notion of grandeur.

The first tornado had obliterated rental properties, displacing the town's most vulnerable—the elderly on fixed incomes, folks on disability scraping by on rice and beans, families who couldn't afford a mortgage even if you gift-wrapped a house for them. "People lost everything they had," Jeff said. "That group right there has been difficult to help."

And for the first time in anyone’s memory, Dawson Springs has a homeless population that lives in corners and the shadows that only a small town can manufacture.

Jeff saw the widening cracks in the system, the people slipping through like smoke into the gray. He became a reluctant linchpin in the town's rebuilding efforts, stepping up as the pastor of a modest church that suddenly found itself a magnet for out-of-state donations. "Money started pouring into this church," he said. "People were calling, and they wanted to help our town or help our church. They didn't want to give to big-name groups” because they were concerned the money would be siphoned off to pay organizational administrative costs, Jeff said. “I want my money to go help somebody,” was a refrain he heard time and time again.

With a mix of humility and a no-nonsense sense
of duty, Jeff took on the role of steward.

With a mix of humility and a no-nonsense sense of duty, Jeff took on the role of steward for these unexpected funds. "When I spend this money, I would think that you'd be happy if you were standing right beside me," he promised the donors. "And I know the Lord's standing beside me.” 

It was a learning process tempered by adversity. “I've blown it,” he says. “I've messed up sometimes. I've been conned."

But setbacks didn't slow him down. Jeff successfully navigated a sea of committees, board meetings, and strategy sessions. Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, he teamed up any outfit willing to roll up their sleeves. "We worked together well," he said of such alliances. "And that was a good experience. Has been, still."

The weight on his shoulders was palpable. "You do carry a lot of weight sometimes it feels like," he said. "The load gets sort of heavy when you hear a lot of problems." He remembers standing in the wreckage, fearing the worst for friends and neighbors. "I just stood there and wept," he said. "Those kinds of memories just... I'll never lose that,” he said, his voice tailing off into a whisper.

Public opinion is fickle, and often caught the brunt of it. "People are people," he said. "You've got some that's got their hand out that don't need it, and you've got others that need more than what we've got." He faced his share of armchair critics and social media snipers. "I've had my name plastered on Facebook because I'm on these committees," he said. "You can do nothing, and nobody will ever say anything bad about you. You can try to do something and take the risk... then somebody else is mad at you 'cause you didn't build them [a house]."

"If we're going to err, let's err on the side of love."

Still, his guiding principle remains unshaken. "If we're going to err, let's err on the side of love," he says. Can’t please everyone, he knows that, it was never the mission anyway. The mission was to keep moving, even when the road was littered with potholes and second-guessers.

One Christmas morning, pockets stuffed with rolled-up hundred-dollar bills in $500 bundles from the donated cash, Jeff walked the ravaged streets. He approached a lifelong acquaintance who was sifting through the debris that used to be his home. "This isn't going to get back what you lost, but Merry Christmas," Jeff told him, handing over the money. "I had guys twice my size pick me up off the ground and tears just flowing off their face," he said. In that moment, a slim stack of bills became more than just money; it was raw hope. 

Jeff doesn't see himself as a hero—far from it. "I've been told, ‘you're not the pastor of this church; you're Dawson Springs' pastor,’" he said, almost sheepishly. "I'm saying that, and I feel real small by saying that because I'm not supposed to be bragging." He's acutely aware of his own imperfections and the limitations that come with being human. "You can't change them," he said about the naysayers and opportunists. 

He didn't ask to be the face of Dawson Springs, but when
the role landed on his doorstep, he also didn't flinch.

But he keeps at it. He shows up to every meeting, signs up for every committee that needs a hand, and visits every home where a comforting word might make a difference. He's stared down the barrel of fury and witnessed the darker angels of human nature, yet he refuses to back down.

And so it goes. Amid the tapestry of small-town America, Jeff’s example stands as testament to resilience. He didn't ask to be the face of Dawson Springs. When the role landed on his doorstep, he didn't flinch. By stepping up, he offers a blueprint of what can happen when a community chooses unity over division, action over apathy.

At the end of our time together, I slipped another $1,000 stack from my pocket and pushed it his way. His eyes grew wide. Speechless. “No strings attached,” I said, launching into my usual patter about giving back to those who seek nothing in return for all they do. He began to openly weep.

“This just keeps happening,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Are you an angel?” he said, straight up, no smile or joking implied. At first I thought of saying, “Well, I couldn’t tell you, even if I was,” but opted for the obvious truth. “No, no,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m far from it.” I asked what he thought he might do with the money.” 

At first he said he’d just give it back to me, a donation to help me keep going. I politely refused the gesture. “Well, there’s any number of folks who could use this,” he said. “I promise you this, I’ll multiply this money.” 

He folded the bundle into calloused palms—careful, almost fearful of bruising something tender and alive. Lips moving without sound, a silent prayer rolling beneath his breath. Then he lifted his gaze toward the shattered horizon—the same one that had twice tried to flatten his town—and I watched resolve rise behind his tear-rimmed eyes like dawn behind broken rafters. He shook his head, a slow, reverent motion, as though the possibilities were too wide to name. “Whatever it becomes,” he said finally, voice steadying, “it’ll be seed in good soil.”

We stepped outside. The late-afternoon light poured across the scarred streets. Somewhere a hammer struck, sharp and rhythmic as a choir of cicadas tuned up for evening. He tucked the money inside his worn leather Bible, pressed it shut, and laid a broad hand over the cover—part oath, part blessing.

“Stay the night,” he said. “I have a parking spot in front of my shed with your name on it.” A safe harbor. He also promised a shore power electrical connection I could plug into the side of Josie so I could use the 110v outlets I’d installed in her living space. I gratefully accepted.

In the morning he invited me in. His wife offered to cook up a good ol’ country breakfast; I opted for a bowl of cereal instead. 

“Thank you for believing in us,” he said.

I told him belief was easy. All a man had to do was stand on this cracked pavement and listen. The hard part, I said, was to drive away and leave that music behind. 

He laughed then, soft and grateful, and we clasped hands in the dust that had drifted in from Main Street—two travelers headed in different directions, carrying the same small flame. I climbed into Josie and eased her onto the road, the town receding in the mirror. Behind me, the pastor turned toward the rubble and the rising walls, pockets heavy with promise—and richer than ever for it.