GOOD OLD DAYS:

When the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen held its first Thanksgiving dinner 22 years ago, about 30 people reportedly showed up for a hot meal.

This year, hundreds will be able to dig into the turkey, gravy, potatoes and stuffing, with so many volunteers that they will work in four shifts.

It’s the monument left by Merle Hatleberg, who passed away in May 2007. Hatleberg single-handedly founded the kitchen on her birthday, June 15, 1986.

It began with volunteers handing out food at the Rea community center, which has since been turned back into Rea Elementary School.

“She went to the city, said, ‘There’s a lot of hungry people in Costa Mesa. We really do need a soup kitchen, and I’m just the person to run it,’� said Hatleberg’s granddaughter and Someone Cares executive director Shannon Santos.

After a few years, however, the school was reborn and Someone Cares was left homeless.

“We worked at several different churches,� Santos said. “Oftentimes people were preparing food at one place at a church, and then serving at a different location. It was very cumbersome.�

Hatleberg was 63 when the center held its first Thanksgiving, but she had already gotten numerous friends to become volunteers — people who stuck around for years to come, Santos said. It was all part of her personality, she added.

“She was incredibly warm, and she would literally give people the jacket off her back — and did,� Santos said. “She would give away her raincoats and her umbrellas all the time. But she was very firm in her belief that she wanted people with assistance to help themselves.�

One thing is different with Hatleberg gone: her presence to bless the meal and say her favorite Psalm, the 23rd.

“It was the little things like that, the blessing of meal on the holidays, that stick out,� Santos said. “Not only to my eyes but to a lot of people in that dining room, it was heartfelt and meaningful coming from her. Those are things we missed on the first holidays without her.�

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes. com.