TRAVERSE CITY — Volunteers at Central United Methodist Church came together to pack Thanksgiving supplies for families in need.
It’s an annual tradition, but this year, they quadrupled their efforts, collecting more than a hundred full Thanksgiving meals to give out to the community.
Organizers say it’s because of the extra pressure put on families from rising prices and delays to snap payments earlier this month.
“The pantry said this year the need is greater than ever,” according to Nora Francis, organizer at Central United Methodist. “They essentially said, ‘we will take everything you can give us. Everything and anything you can give us.’”
Volunteers responded to the call today with trailers full of turkeys and carloads of canned goods.
“The congregation’s response has been fantastic,” Francis said. “We have tripled the number of bags of groceries. We have a total of 377 bags of groceries that we’re donating. We have quadrupled the number of turkeys; 116 turkeys will go to six different agencies.”
Bill Klintworth has been a part of the Thanksgiving collections for years, normally gathering a few dozen turkeys each holiday. But this year, he wanted to see if he could do more.
“When I first started, I think it was 25,” Klintworth said. “And finally, this year, the call was, well, could you do a 100 turkeys? And so actually today we’re delivering 116 turkeys.”
For Bill, Thanksgiving is a special time--- and he’s made it his personal mission to make it special for other members of the community.
“It just struck me what a tragedy it would be for a man to not be able to offer his family a nice Thanksgiving meal,” Klintworth said. “And so it just seemed to really resonate with me. And so this is kind of been my cause celeb, where every year this is the biggest thing that I do.”
Food deliveries were packed up and sent to half a dozen charity organizations around the area, including the Salvation Army, K.A.I.R. Kalkaska and Leelanau Christian Neighbors
“They look frozen as they can be red at the moment and ready to go,” Klintworth said. “So Meijer helped us out this year and set aside 100 for us. And, you know, it’s a blessing, and I’m very thankful for it…There are several phone calls and trips to the store, just to make sure that when the moment comes, there are turkeys.”