Sharing in the bounty
Detroit restaurant owners continue tradition of helping the hungry at Thanksgiving
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published November 17, 2006
Photo by Joe Kohn
Frances Cannarsa-Truant and her son, Randy Truant, prepare the kitchen of their fine Italian restaurant, Giovanni’s in Detroit, to make Thanksgiving Day dinners for patrons of St. Leo’s Soup Kitchen. The family restaurant has been making holiday meals for the soup kitchen for 17 years. |
Detroit — What are dozens of turkeys doing in the kitchen of a fine Italian restaurant?
No, it's not a holiday joke.
At Giovanni's Ristorante in southwest Detroit — known commonly as a hidden gem of fine dining in the city — the turkeys are being prepared to feed hundreds of needy and homeless in the city.
"We don't do much with turkey," says part-owner Randy Truant of the restaurant's daily menu, "Veal and that sort of thing we do.…"
But when it comes to Thanksgiving, things change. For the past 17 years, Frances Cannarsa-Truant and her son, Randy Truant — both members of St. Hugh Parish in Southgate — have been making full-blown
Thanksgiving Day meals for patrons at St. Leo's Soup Kitchen in Detroit.
In the days leading up to the big national holiday, their chefs who routinely turn out fine homemade lasagna and scrumptious scaloppini switch gears to make the classic American dinner for folks who can't afford it themselves.
"How often do they get a hot meal?" asks Cannarsa-Truant, who took the family-owned restaurant over from her brothers some 30 years ago. "None of them have homes."
A family thing
 Giovanni's Restaurant
Location: 330 S Oakwood Blvd. in Detroit
What they do: Serve fine Italian food year-round; make hundreds of Thanksgiving Day meals to be served each year at St. Leo's Soup Kitchen.
Owners:
Fran Cannarsa-Truant and son Randy Truant
Contact: (313) 841-0122
http://www.giovannisristorante.com/ | For Cannarsa-Truant, making the Thanksgiving dinners for the soup kitchen started in 1985, the year her husband, Olindo Truant, passed away.
Looking at the blessings she still had in life, including a son who she was able to put through school, she felt a need to give to others some of what she'd received.
"I was widowed, and I was able to put my son through school – I thought I had to give back," Cannarsa-Truant said. "I called downtown to a newspaper and said, 'I have to do something — what about a soup kitchen?'"
The newspaper suggested a lesser-known soup kitchen at Detroit's St. Leo Parish. That year, she says, they made Thanksgiving dinners for about 150 people.
Since that time, as the number of needy downtown has grown, so have the dinners Giovanni's Ristorante has sent to the soup kitchen.
Last year, the restaurant fed 350 people Thanksgiving Day meals. All trimmings included, too.
"We have green beans, corn, bread stuffing, mostaccioli," Cannarsa-Truant says. "Last year we made 50 pounds of mostaccioli."
Gratzi!
St. Leo Soup Kitchen
Location: 4860 15th Street in Detroit
What they do: Give food and clothing to the poor; provide showers; limited medical services; barber shop. Last year, served 75,000 meals.
Pastor: retired Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Contact: (313) 897-6565 | Their efforts don't go unnoticed, either.
"This woman is a Godsend," says Daretta Williams, director of St. Leo Soup Kitchen, of Cannarsa-Truant. "We're amazed at her."
Retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, pastor of St. Leo Parish, says the people at the soup kitchen take notice of the holiday fixings, too.
"It's kind of the best meal you could provide anywhere because it's really a top-notch restaurant and they do really a good job for us on Thanksgiving," the bishop says. "It means a lot to all of our guests who come here so regularly to get a real treat like that."
It's a meal that has to stand out among many. Last year the soup kitchen, located off Grand River Avenue near where I-94 and I-96 meet, served about 75,000 meals.
"It's vitally important for us to have volunteers and donors alike to come down and give of their time and, of course, monetary donations for us," Williams says. "We receive only minimal monetary funds from the state, and they only run us about seven months of the entire year and then we just go on our own." Joseph Micallef, supervisor of the kitchen, oversees a small staff and a large force of volunteers to make it happen.
"Volunteers come from all over," Micallef says. "It's an eye-opener for them. Once they come, you can tell they've never thought of something like that."
Micallef says those who come for meals at the soup kitchen often are homeless, or they live on minimal funds and — after paying for rent and utilities — have no other options for food.
"These people are not coming down to the soup kitchen for fun," he says. "They're coming down there because it's the only way they can get something to eat."
Fire-proof giving
Giving them something to eat hasn't been easy each year for the Italian family restaurant, either. This year, for example, Giovanni's suffered a major catastrophe. For the second time in about a decade, it nearly burned down.
When linens in the kitchens caught fire March 24, after the restaurant doors had closed for the night, the restaurant was ravaged by a blaze.
"It ended up causing a great amount of damage to the kitchen side, the mechanical side," said Randy Truant. "We basically had to tear out all the walls, all the ceilings, all the insulation."
Truant was even tempted to follow the advice of some patrons and move the restaurant out to a nicer area in the suburbs.
But — seeing as that Cannarsa-Truant grew up in the neighborhood when the restaurant building housed an appliance store and a Kroger — there proved to be too much history there for the family to leave behind.
So they embarked on the months-long work of rebuilding the restaurant. It reopened only weeks ago.
"I think the city needs a place like this, with the character that has deep-rooted history," says Truant. "This is who we are. Every city needs a couple great little secret spots, and we hope to fulfill that niche for the city."
Photo by Joe Kohn
Randy Truant prepares an order of pasta in Giovanni’s Ristorante. | Indeed a lot of family history goes with the restaurant — but especially with the family spirit cultivated there. Growing up in Detroit, Cannarsa-Truant recalls her mother making meals for the man down the street who couldn't afford to eat, and opening her home to guests who had no place to stay.
"It has a lot to do with our heritage," she says. "My mother was a giving, kind person no matter what."
And one need only peer into St. Leo's Soup Kitchen on a Thanksgiving Day to realize that the family's Christian spirit has been passed down fervently from one generation to the next.
"In our family," says Randy Truant, "that's what we do."
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