Members of the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday served up free meals, instead of slam dunks, during the 13th Annual Harvest Dinner.

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The Blazers teamed up with Providence Health and Services for the event.

It is traditionally the largest free meal of its kind in Portland. It serves an estimated 5,000 homeless or critically low-income individuals each year.

The annual dinner is manned entirely by volunteers from the Trail Blazers, with assistance from community partners.

The dinner came at a critical time. The Oregon Food Bank said, for the first time in four years, it recorded a significant increase in the number of emergency food boxes it distributed. It said those requests were up nearly 40,000 from the previous year.