On the Monday morning of Thanksgiving week this correspondent paid a visit to the parking lot of St. Mary’s food bank in Phoenix, Arizona. St. Mary's had reported that food banks across the nation were overrun this year by the unfortunate who lack the funds to join in the celebration feast shared by millions of American families. We wanted to gage this year’s turnout and gain some insight into which demographics were moved to reach out of their need and desperately try to assemble a festive meal for their family.

Who Was There?

We expected to see a preponderance of single mothers with eager children in the back seat cued up for a turkey.

• Rather we met a retired banker in a classic Mercedes who, in his words, has stuck around past his “sell-by” date and now needed help putting together a meal for some “little ragamuffins” in his neighborhood.
• A retired pastor who no longer had a parish but wanted to feed “the family next door” whose mother had been killed in an auto accident.
• Four little old ladies all in their eighties (they finally admitted) who played bridge and loved to cook but "the inflation" this year had made it impossible for them to afford a turkey and all “the fixins”. So, they helped Betty back out the “auto” and drive to St. Mary’s to see if there were any “vittles” to spare.

Thanks to St. Mary’s

St. Mary’s distributed more than 20,000 turkeys and holiday food boxes in the days leading up to Thanksgiving in 2022. Spokesman Jerry Brown said the nonprofit organization has a goal this year of about 21,000 turkeys. “2023 is going to be a record year for the amount of people who come." He said he expects a large demand at the St. Mary’s location near Sun City, where many seniors on fixed incomes are being squeezed by inflation. “We used to get about 100 to 175 people a day at our Sun City location. Now our numbers are over 600 a day,” he said. “Many of those people are seniors seeking food assistance for the first time, including some who do volunteer work with St. Mary’s and then go home with a food box.”

And to Volunteers Around the Country

Thanksgiving is only a couple days away and already several Connecticut communities have given back by donating food or serving free meals.

• Volunteers and staff members at a nonprofit in Hartford spent the day Wednesday cooking hundreds of meals for senior citizens to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal. Over 100 turkeys were cooked, and 50 pounds of stuffing prepared along with many other sides at the Community Renewal Team's Hartford location. The meals were then packaged up and will be sent off to 25 senior centers across Hartford and Tolland counties on Thursday. “We have some seniors who are literally home by themselves for the holiday season, and they have some family who may be out of town. So, to have a warm Thanksgiving meal just means so much to them,” said Euniqua Lewis, program manager for the Elderly Nutrition Program. The organization is also preparing around 800 home delivery meals for Meals on Wheels and, in total, will be serving 1,600 seniors this Thanksgiving holiday.
• A church in Hartford did something similar on Sunday with the help of local businesses and a Jewish synagogue. "We need to help seniors. How do you help to ensure that on Thanksgiving they have meals? You collect from donors whatever they need," said Dexter Burke, Senior Pastor at Walk in the Light Church of God. Burke, along with Temple Beth Hillel in South Windsor and local businesses, teamed up to distribute 400 turkeys on Sunday. "Wow, that's a lot of turkeys," said Andy Brown, of Hartford. Brown was in line bright and early to get one of those turkeys, which he says he'll be making for his kids and grandkids on Thursday.

Help Provides Hope

While most of us were looking at inflation as an economic problem that might affect the upcoming elections, seniors across the country were slipping over the poverty line and struggling to afford enough to eat. Like the eighty-year-old lady in the back seat of the Buick in line at St. Mary's told us, "It's about 'the inflation'. We're lucky St. Mary's was here to help."

For seniors on this Thanksgiving, turkeys were just one part of this holiday giveaway; HOPE was the main takeaway.