BATON ROUGE — For decades, Major Reginald Brown has led a group of generous holiday helpers as they transformed the River Center into a dining hall for the poor, elderly and the lonely. 

Brown, a city constable, started the Thanksgiving tradition of the Holiday Helpers in 1987. Starting in 2017, the group joined St. Vincent de Paul to serve even more people on Thanksgiving. 

Brown eventually retired as constable in 2018, but the Thanksgiving tradition he started continued through floods, freezes and a pandemic.