How college students transform Thanksgiving for 75 families
The passion behind The Kaizen Project
Digging in
As the Novemeber air turns crisp, families around the nation gather around tables brimming with turkey, stuffing, and the sound of laughter echoing off the walls as “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” plays in the background. But there’s a quieter story unfolding.
For those struggling to make ends meet, Thanksgiving rings of empty stomachs and uncertainty.
But for 75 Fort Worth families, there is hope — and it’s thanks to a group of college students.
The students stepping up during the Thanksgiving season are members of The Kaizen Project, a non-profit Davis Martin, a TCU alumnus, founded in high school with a group of friends. His brother Hayes Martin, who graduated in May with a biology degree, took on leadership his senior year after his brother graduated.
Initially, the program mostly consisted of preparing Thanksgiving meal baskets for underprivileged local families in New Orleans.
“Our high school did an annual Thanksgiving drive that fed around 500 families, but many more families were not getting a meal,” Martin said.
It was high schooler Davis Martin who ushered in a new approach, pitching a Christmas drive to feed those extra families.
Starting out, Martin said, was a little daunting. “It kind of just fell in my lap,” he said.
Having never held a prominent leadership position, the task ahead seemed intimidating. But he took it on in stride, driven by a deep-seated desire to make a difference in the lives of those struggling in his community.
Growth & Development
“By the time I took it over, we helped 250 families a year,” Martin said.
Now The Kaizen Project has expanded across three states: Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama. It’s dedicated to providing meals for families in need during Thanksgiving, taking steps to combat the food insecurity crisis across Texas and beyond.
Growing the project on TCU’s campus began with Martin reaching out to people he knew the best: other pre-med students.
“Using my connection to that program was an easy way to get people on board,” he said.
Soon, Martin had enough volunteers to carry out a Thanksgiving food drive, all through word-of-mouth recruiting.
“My sophomore year, the board was made up of six guys, my junior year it was eight, and senior year it was nine,” Martin said. “It just kept growing,”
Over the years, The Kaizen Project has provided over 2,000 individual meals to 300 low-income families in Texas since 2018, and volunteers honor a dedication to “continuous improvement,” the meaning of the Japanese term, Kaizen.
Every Thanksgiving, members of the Fort Worth branch of Kaizen gather at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Tarrant County, ready to hand out food to 75 families in need.
But the process starts long before the baskets are hand-delivered. Kaizen members gather in trucks and head to supermarkets to fill grocery carts with hundreds of pounds of turkeys and side dishes. Then, they work together to assemble the Thanksgiving baskets in the Brown-Lupton University Union ballroom.
The baskets are then carefully placed in large U-Haul moving boxes, ready to be loaded onto trucks for transport to the Boys and Girls Club. Members stand proudly beside the trucks full of meals, smiling brightly, joyful at the opportunity to give back to their community.
The Progression
“The best part is interacting with families one on one. You see how small things can have a huge impact. We get to use all the blessings we have here at TCU and pass it on to someone else,” said Spencer Lanyon, a junior majoring in biology. Lanyon was the Vice President of the Kaizen Project last semester, and he talks about his experience with an admiration that is captivating.
And although Martin is about to start medical school, his commitment to supporting Kaizen is unwavering.
“I’ll just be 45 minutes away in Dallas, I can always come back and help if I’m needed,” Martin said.
“My favorite experience was my sophomore year when there was a miscalculation of supplies,” Martin said. “Just to see the way everyone came together and immediately started driving around to get everything back in order, it was really something. I got to witness how we all worked together to solve the problem effectively.”
Martin’s legacy of service and leadership lives on through the new board members. Ryan Murray, Mark Sayegh and Spencer Lanyon are all juniors who are taking over the organization after Martin's recent graduation.
“I looked for people who were truly passionate about service, not just people looking to add something onto their resume,” Martin said.
“The food insecurity crisis in Fort Worth is a prevalent issue. As TCU students we don’t even think twice about it. It’s great being able to give back to the community.”
Sayegh, Murray and Lanyon hope to use their new roles as board members to expand Kaizen, perhaps by volunteering biweekly at local food banks or hosting more events on campus. They aim to connect students with the Fort Worth community.
These juniors also have lists of impressive commitments outside of Kaizen. Sayegh heads a non-profit, is president of the chemistry club and is the social media coordinator of the pre-health department. Lanyon is the vice president of Sayegh’s nonprofit, the sergeant of arms for his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi and makes time to assistant in biology labs. Murray is the co-director of Frog Aids, the TCU Student Government Association leadership organization for first-year students and a TCU Ambassador.
Looking ahead
“They say if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life,” Sayegh said. “Everything I do I’m truly passionate about, so it makes it seem like I’m not working. It is a blessing to have the opportunity to be involved.”
Anyone is welcome to volunteer for the annual Thanksgiving event by aiding in packaging baskets or by hand-delivering meals to families between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.
“I’ve never had someone volunteer and come back and say they didn’t enjoy it,” Martin said.
While the future of Kaizen is ever-changing, the members behind it are committed to counteracting the food insecurity crisis in Fort Worth by partnering with local organizations and encouraging volunteering.
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