By Karen Boeck
On Tuesday, November 21, 2023 our conference convened at Bashas ‘on 99th Avenue and Beardsley for our annual Turkey Tuesday event. In the early morning we were positioned out front of the store, with our team and a huge container for our donated turkeys. Another SVdP Conference was at work at the second Basha’s entrance, also collecting turkeys for the needy families in their district.
We served 37 families throughout the day with a turkey, groceries, and a gift card, donated to each recipient by Bashas’ making their Thanksgiving complete. Teams worked two-hour shifts to receive donated turkeys and pass them on to our neighbors.
Our conference members had packed and brought some of the holiday food items from our pantry, which had been given by our parishioners’ contributions at our October food drive. Several customers purchased and donated potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce and other foods from Bashas’ for our turkey drive. These extra food items rounded out the meals for our neighbors. Anonymously one donor contributed several large bags, which had been bought and left in a cart inside the store. Our conference also received $2,215 in donations, which will be used to feed our families in the future.
By 7:00pm we had tallied donations of 132 turkeys, moving 20 to our church pantry freezer, as our container for turkeys was overflowing!! We were so very pleased by the many who stopped and assisted us with turkeys, food stuff, and donations. One gentleman donated a total of 20 turkeys, which helped cause our overflow! Some of the many turkeys were shared with our downtown Watkins center, which feeds thousands of homeless and needy people on Thanksgiving Day, and beyond.
Our dedicated co-chairs, Yvonne Evans and Barbara Scott, made the day run smoothly. They had some fun along the way, wearing their turkey hats, along with one of our members who donned our turkey costume, which amused the shoppers.
We are so grateful for the generous response from the Bashas’ shoppers who stopped to chat and donate! Many were complimentary of SVDP and the work we do for the needy.
Thanks be to God for the giving kind souls who assisted our needy neighbors and for the beautiful day we spent sharing God’s blessings!
