People Are Generous

Because of the ribbon cutting we had at the food bank on Wednesday, there were several press organizations around. Toward the end of the day, I received a call from Amber Lee, a reporter at Channel 2 news, asking who we serve and what food we need. I answered a lot of questions, but when she asked if she could come down and visit/interview, I turned the phone over to the Food Bank Director.


I left to make a delivery to the warehouse. I was gone about half an hour and totally missed the reporter's visit. The FBD said that he was giving Ms. Lee a tour of the food bank and mentioned that we plan to give away between 300 and 400 turkeys next week, partly provided by the Kiwanis Turkey Drive at the Blanden Avenue Nob Hill store and the Italian-American League. She asked if we had received any turkeys for the giveaway and the FBD said that yes, we had one. She said that she'd like to see it.


We had this one turkey because it came in the delivery of random meat from Trader Joe's. It was sitting in the small meat freezer because the big meat freezer was packed. We've been having power issues with the small freezer so I've only been putting as much meat as needed for service in it each day because each night I've had to leave it empty. When the FBD pulled the door open, there were two packages of chicken strips on the top shelf, one package of fish on the second shelf, and the turkey in the bottom. He said that the reporter insisted her cameraperson shoot the freezer. I think one turkey is a lot more pathetic looking than just an empty freezer. The story ran Wednesday night on the 6pm news.


I had yesterday off but the FBD said the phone had rung off the hook with people asking when they could bring turkeys over and if we needed any "trimmings." A woman came to the food bank and pledged a huge donation of turkeys (which should come Monday), and a youth group visited last night, bringing 25 turkeys with them. When I got to work today there was a guy waiting, wanting to know if he could help, and he told me he was going to take his kids to the stores to buy turkeys. Today during the day two separate people brought us a dozen turkeys; a man gave us eight; a mother and her three sons brought us five; and a lot of individuals brought us one or two turkeys. Several people walked in the door and handed me checks made out to the food bank.


Yesterday morning we had one turkey. This evening we have ninety-one, and we know more are coming.