Food Shelf thankful for donations
Burlington, Vermont – November 20, 2010
Nate Formalarie – WCAX News
The annual thanksgiving turkey drive is underway at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. This year’s bird supply got a big boost.
From a single turkey, to tiny turkeys, to a U-Haul full of the holiday birds.
“It’s especially great to see people coming forward to help their neighbors,” said Rob Meehan of the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf.
The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf was busy Saturday morning as it continues to collect donations, hoping every person in need of help this Thanksgiving gets it.
“We’re getting there, we probably have 900 or so to go. We weren’t really expecting people today on a Saturday, but people are showing up in droves to help us out,” Meehan said.
“I just couldn’t imagine a Thanksgiving without turkey dinner, so we just started collecting money and its grown to be much bigger than I ever expected,” said Mauranda Dalzeil of Jericho.
For the Delzeil family, giving is quickly becoming a family tradition. They are donating for the third year in a row, and this year they set a new record.
“We call family and friends and ask them for donations. Go door to door at our development, set up little canisters at convenience stores. We just dropped off 125 turkeys that we collected through monetary donations. We went to a local grocery store and purchased all the turkeys,” Dalzeil said.
“Bringing in 125 turkeys all on their own. We didn’t know they were going to do that again this year. It’s the third year straight. Remarkable stuff, it’s an amazing community,” Meehan said.
The Food Shelf will turn these donations into meals for the 12-thousand people it serves, 5-thouand of which are children. Meehan says with the donations leaving the food shelf as fast as they come in, the need is great and the community stepping up to help is huge.
“The economy is bad, gas prices just cranking up again, you’ve got utility costs that are through the roof. In Vermont here we have a housing crisis, so all of these things just add more pressure on people,” Meehan said.
The food shelf is accepting donations all next week and taking monetary donations in addition to food.
