The last two Thanksgivings Ariel Bangs has cooked dinner not just for herself and her family but for several needy families. Last year she cooked for five families and the year before six or seven.

This year the 20-something Bangs of Federal Way made Thanksgiving dinner for about 10 families. But she had help — from several cooks who rent space at Creative Kitchen Works, a commercial kitchen that opened in July on Renton’s Southwest 41st Street. Bangs makes the food for her company, Healthy Creations, at Creative Kitchen.

She and the kitchen’s team of chefs spent four days preparing full Thanksgiving meals for the 80-some hungry recipients. Meals of turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, stuffing, sourdough bread, spinach and greens, fresh cranberry sauce, gravy and rice and an assortment of cakes. Each family gets a different cake. Maybe chocolate, mousse, strawberry, peach-ginger or an apple-cinnamon pie.

Much of the food was donated, from grocery stores, catering companies and individuals.

Bangs baked dessert.

“It’s something different for everyone to have dessert that’s a little bit different than normal,” she says. “It’s a surprise. It’s nice for people.”

Nice for Bangs is that she didn’t have to cook all the food this Thanksgiving. The past two years she made each meal separately and delivered one each night of Thanksgiving week and a couple the week before. This year the chefs did most cooking Sunday, after a couple days of prep work. The families pick up the meals today (Wednesday).

“This year is easier,” Bangs said. “Before it was just me. This year we have more donations. More people recognizing this is something they want to do, that this is something that reaches out to their hearts as well.”

Bangs realized she wanted to donate Thanksgiving dinners while volunteering at homeless and domestic violence shelters in Seattle. Before a recent Thanksgiving, four people told Bangs they weren’t going to have Thanksgiving because they couldn’t afford the food. One of these people was at a domestic violence shelter, another waiting for her child at a school in Seattle’s Central District, two homeless kids in Seattle’s University District.

Bangs believes these people shared their troubles for a reason. She knew how to cook and she knew how to get donations. So she helped. Simple.

As she says, “If you’re listening and you know of a way to help, you do that. If you can’t, you don’t.”

Bangs knew how to help. She also knew hunger and how hard it is to ask for help.

She was laid off from an administrative job about four years ago. For six months she lived alone, with no money and no food.

“I didn’t ask for food. I was embarrassed where I was at,” Bangs says. “I know it’s really difficult to do that.”

Hearing the four Seattle people share their hunger tales reminded Bangs of those six months.

“It reminded me I would have liked someone to reach out to me…” she says.

The first two years, Bangs reached out to her Thanksgiving families through counselors and principals at Seattle schools. This year she used organizations like Renton Salvation Army and area schools to identify turkeyless families.

Some of this year’s families live in Renton. Others in Seattle, Tukwila and nearby cities. Bangs hasn’t served any of the families before.

“I prefer them to be new families,” she says. “I want to reach out to everyone. If a family needs it a second year they can let me know, but that’s special. I don’t want to just have the same 10 families receiving assistance every year.”

Shellie Perry is glad to have Creative Kitchen’s assistance this Thanksgiving. Her husband Thomas lost his job at a printing company and was denied unemployment. Thomas recently took a new, lesser-paying job, but for the past three to four months the SeaTac family has been living without power, phone, cable and Internet.

“We’re just trying to keep the house from going into foreclosure,” Perry says. “I wasn’t even contemplating celebrating the holidays.”

Until Thursday, when Veich offered the family a Creative Kitchen Thanksgiving. Now Perry and Thomas and their four children and grandchild will have food on Thursday. And not have to worry about spending money that could pay bills.

“It’s not fair when you have to decide to pay a bill versus eating,” Bangs says.

By providing Thanksgiving meals, Bangs hopes to alleviate the stress the holiday inflicts on the hungry, especially on parents.

“For kids, it’s hard for them to understand why they can’t have something as simple as food,” Bangs says.

But her assistance is about more than food.

“It’s not so much about food, it’s about the action of it,” Bangs explains. “Treating people with compassion and love, treating people how you’re supposed to. The way you want to be treated.”

Creative Kitchen owner Sandra Veich is happy to help Bangs with tomorrow’s meals.

“It feels good to be able to do something to help other people,” she says.

Veich’s husband Richard, daughter Brandi and son-in-law Tobie are also helping, as are other Creative Kitchen chefs.

As owners of Robinson Catering, Brandi and Tobie have prepared Thanksgiving dinner for 35. They also recently cooked a meal for 800 people. Veich helped.

“That was a lot of food. … Something like this is nothing,” Veich says of Thursday’s meals.

Creative Kitchen’s walk-in fridge and four industrial convection ovens make cooking easy, even for multiple Thanksgiving feasts. Still, Veich said she was nervous going into the four days of work. A “control freak,” she doesn’t like depending on others. But she knew she could depend on Bangs.

“I’ve never seen a chef like her. … the things she can cook,” Veich said.

The Creative Kitchen crew plans to team up again next Thanksgiving, and serve even more families.

“Instead of 10 families maybe next year we’ll have 20 or 30,” Bangs says. “And with more donations, in the coming years maybe we can reach out to 100 to 200 families. So all the people in the community can benefit.”