A Turkey Day Surprise

Some Triangle families will be receiving a Turkey Day surprise this year thanks to area nonprofits. Inter-Faith Food Shuttle (IFFS) held our annual "Turkey Takeout" event this morning to distribute turkeys and all the fixings to local agencies who will then distribute them to families they serve. “When we called one of our patients to tell her she had been selected to receive the turkey dinner, she  broke down and cried,” said William Massengill, CEO for Benson Medical Center.   Massengill’s community health center is one

of 15 agencies serving low-income families selected to participate in the free turkey giveaway.

“We asked our physicians to identify the 17 patients most in need of fresh, healthy food.  These families are the poorest of the poor. They were not going to have Thanksgiving if it weren’t for this event.”

IFFS holds a fresh food Mobile Market every month at the medical center.  The center’s physicians write a “prescription” for fresh produce for their patients most in need, which they then use at the monthly market  to shop for free.

At this year's Turkey Takeout, over 30 volunteers helped load vehicles from 15 area agencies full of  turkeys  and veggies from US Foods, collard greens gleaned by IFFS volunteers at Burch Brothers farm, cabbage and apples from Ford's Produce,  sweet potatoes from FarmPak, and  rice and pies from other IFFS local donors - all for the families they serve.  Thanks to these generous folks, 250 more families will now be able to have a Thanksgiving meal.

Looking for a way you can help? Here's a list of more ways to help families in need this holiday season.

Turkey Takeout 2011

One out of four children are hungry right here in the Triangle. This past Thursday, the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle held its 5^th annual “Turkey Takeout” event and distributed 500 turkeys, fresh produce, bread and pies to partner agencies and pantries for 500 families this Thanksgiving.  Without this distribution of food, hundreds of people in our community would go without a holiday meal. Thanks to community support, great food donor partnerships, our wonderful recipient agencies, and volunteers who braved the rain to come help out with this event, IFFS was able to distribute:

• 500 Turkeys
• 1000 lbs of Green Beans
• 7000 lbs of Sweet Potatoes
• 1350 lbs of Cabbage
• 1000 lbs of Collards
• 750 lbs of Croissants
• 625 lbs of Desserts

All of this will go to make sure 500 families who may otherwise not have been able to enjoy a traditional holiday dinner can now do just that.  Pre-approved agencies and pantries sent representatives to Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to pick up the meals and distribute them to people living with food hardship. Fords Produce and U.S. Foods provided 2,350 pounds of vegetables (cabbage & green beans), Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's own field gleaning program provided 8,000 pounds of fresh sweet potatoes  and collards gleaned from local NC farms to pair with the 500 turkeys, pies and bread.

“These tough economic times make Inter-Faith Food Shuttle work even harder to end hunger,” said Jill Staton Bullard, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. “We are thrilled to be able to distribute holiday food for 500 families and are grateful to U.S. Foods and Fords Produce for donating fresh produce.”

Some of our recipient agencies included:

• Alliance of Aids Services – Durham
• Community Helpers – Knightdale
• Catholic Parish Outreach – Raleigh
• EL Vinculo - Siler City
• Episcopal Farmworkers Ministry - Newton Grove
• New Jerusalem Pentecostal – Rocky Mount
• Southern High School Pantry – Durham
• El Centro/Stoneybrook - Raleigh
• Tarboro Community Outreach –Tarboro
• Wake Relief – Raleigh
• West Durham Baptist – Durham

The story of EL Vinculo, one benefiting agency in Siler City:

Highlights from the day:

See more pictures on our Flickr or Facebook page!

What a weekend!

So let's recap. Friday morning, we had our annual Turkey Takeout. We distributed 500 Thanksgiving meals to our partner agencies. Here's WRAL's story on the big day here. Our friend Andy Beal (@andybeal) took some great pictures that we've posted to our Flickr site. And here's our Behind-The-Scenes look at how it went down.

Friday night was the benefit concert/dance party put on by NC State Students at the Sky lounge on Hillsborough Street. That was a lot of fun. We are still figuring up how much food and cash we collected. Who knew our very own Cece White could do such a mean Electric Slide? Even the Food Dude was there.

Saturday night was the Carolina Roller Girls Charity Bout. We'll have pictures and a handle on how much food was collected later this week.

This was a great way to kickoff the holiday season. We can't fight hunger across seven counties without support from the community. Great businesses like US Foods, engaged college students, the Carolina Rollergirls, our partner agencies and volunteers--THANKS!