Good gravy: Record number of Thanksgiving food baskets distributed as local help rises to meet need
- Mark Sabbatini
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Separate pre-holiday food bank drive gets more than 5,000 pounds and $6,000 in donations
By Mark Sabbatini and Ellie Ruel
Juneau Independent
Whatever else Lorelei Vrrutia-Lugo, 17, ends up learning in her U.S. government class this year, she got a lesson this weekend about the value of helping those in need.
Vrrutia-Lugo, a student at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé, spent Saturday helping drivers load grocery bags and frozen turkeys into vehicles during St. Vincent de Paul Juneau’s annual Thanksgiving food basket distribution. She said her class requires 10 hours of community service, and her teacher provided a spreadsheet of options, including various cleaning and organizing projects at JDHS.
“This seemed like a little more important than doing stuff at my school,” Vrrutia-Lugo said. “Not that helping out at school isn’t important. But especially since Thanksgiving is coming up and I know that some people can't afford food for this year for their families, so this has kind of seemed pretty important, especially for this time of year.”
At the same time, Vrrutia-Lugo said what’s happening at her school is what she’s most thankful for this year.
“I'm really thankful for my family, but I think especially my teachers this year because I'm a senior this year, and so I need a lot of help with colleges and stuff, and my teachers’ recommendations for those things,” she said. “So I'm just thankful for my teachers because they read my college essays, they give me advice for stuff, and helped me with my assignments, my work and my homework.”
Organizers said more than 540 households signed up for baskets — a record high for the event the nonprofit has sponsored for decades.
“We’ve never hit 500 before,” said SVDP Juneau Executive Director Jennifer Skinner.
Thankfully, donations to provide turkeys, hams and other traditional Thanksgiving feast foods in the baskets have kept up with demand, Skinner said.
“We managed through a very generous board and also, thankfully, have gotten some extra donations from Costco because they're trying to mitigate food insecurity so they got some extra funding this year and are being generous with that,” she said.
The signup period officially ended Thursday, but Skinner said people can contact SVDP in the coming days: online at https://svdpjuneau.org or by calling (907) 789-5535 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays. She said baskets will be provided if food is available.
Signups were occurring during the record-long government shutdown, which left many Juneau residents without paychecks and food stamps. Organizers of local food banks and other community assistance efforts said the shutdown caused the number of people in need to surge.
Another one of those efforts took place Saturday with the 29th annual Caring is Sharing food drive at Foodland and Super Bear IGA supermarkets. Emma Sihler, programs manager for the Southeast Alaska Food Bank, said as of midday, donations of money appeared to be higher than donations of food at the Foodland collection point.
Southeast Alaska Food Bank Executive Director Dan Parks was handing out blue slips of paper with requested donations to weekend shoppers at Super Bear. According to Parks, the annual event sets up the food bank for the upcoming holiday season and through the winter, and is the sole drive organized by the food bank itself.
“Winter is our busiest season at the food bank. It's when people have the hardest time making ends meet,” Parks said. “What we really want to see today is a lot of perishable food that we can keep in store to get us through the dark months.”
While Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were delayed or suspended during the shutdown, SEAFB saw an uptick in calls and donations to support increased demand at their weekly pantry. Parks hopes the sentiment will continue into the holiday months.
“We already knew Juneau was a very charitable community, but they really showed up for their neighbors and for us,” Parks said. “We're hoping that, because these historic, dramatic cuts are happening with the SNAP program, that people will continue to realize that food banks are one of, if not the only other alternative food assistance in a lot of communities.”
A continuing trend has been the emergence of smaller pop-up food drives organized by individuals or high school students. While those types of events don’t make up the bulk of the food bank’s donations, Parks said it added much-appreciated variety to their stock.
“People will think about a food bank and think, ‘Oh, what is the food bank gonna have? It's gonna have rice, it's gonna have pasta,’” Parks said. “Our patrons, just like anybody else, don't want to eat the same thing every day.”
For Parks and the other volunteers, the drive is an opportunity to build relationships with the community they serve in a less serious way. A “cash cube” where participants grab as many fake bills as possible generated around $1,500 in matched donations by late afternoon, according to officials with local radio station KINY, which cosponsors the event.
“Food security is always a serious business, but we don't take it too seriously. And when we have a fun event like this, where we get to see members of the community and have some laughs, kind of share a common sense of purpose, it's just fun,” Parks said.
Kelly Moore and Miranda Dumont both began volunteering at the food bank after using the pantry.
“There’s no judgment there, ever,” Dumont said. “When I was at a place where I could volunteer and I no longer needed their services, that was a no-brainer to go work there.”
Dumont and Moore both noticed that while there’s been more demand for the food bank’s services in the wake of the shutdown, there also seemed to be less stigma about seeking food assistance and using the pantry.
“People see that it's OK, that it's not weird or wrong or embarrassing,” Moore said. “And then we have the other side of people going, ‘Oh, we see in the media there’s more people needing help,’ and then they want to help.”
As of Saturday night, 5,275 pounds of food and $6485.98 in monetary donations had been collected, not counting frozen and late donations or those raised at registers.
Free community Thanksgiving Day meals
Two free community meal gatherings are scheduled on Thanksgiving Day for people not feasting at homes of family or friends.
The Salvation Army Juneau Corps is hosting its annual traditional Thanksgiving feast from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Juneau Yacht Club. Resurrection Lutheran Church will host an evening meal from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306. Contact Ellie Ruel at ellie.ruel@juneauindependent.com.
