Hundreds Of Turkeys Donated To Philabundance For Local Food Pantries, Charitable Organizations
By Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A season to be thankful, a season to help others, by providing Thanksgiving turkeys.
At the Philabundance food bank in South Philadelphia, a ShopRite truck filled with 600 turkeys was unloaded to be distributed to local food pantries and charitable organizations.
Stefanie Arck-Baynes of Philabundance says 750,000 people in this region face hunger issues.
"The typical average of people facing hunger in the nation is one in seven. Unfortunately, in our area, it's a dire one in four," said Arck-Baynes.
Orien Reid, with ShopRite's Partners in Caring program, says across the country, families rely on food stamps to feed 16 million children.
"Children don't know where their next meal is coming from. It's called food insecurity," said Reid.
Since 1999, ShopRite has donated more than a million pounds of frozen turkeys to food banks in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and three nearby states.
Also, co-founders Kenny and Faatimah Gamble of Universal Companies, which operates charter schools, are showing support for the families of the students in which they educate. They are giving away more than 1,500 turkeys at the eight schools in the Universal group. The drop offs today included 200 turkeys each at Universal Creighton in Lawncrest as well as Daroff and Bluford, both of which are in West Philadelphia, and the rest of the birds will go to its five other schools on Thursday.