Approximately 100 volunteers will deliver 1,400 meals today to elderly and disabled citizens as part of the Columbus Police Department and Columbus Fire & Rescue’s annual Turkey Drive.
CPD has held the drive for 21 years, according to Rhonda Sanders, community relations officer with CPD.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Sanders oversaw volunteers who turned up at Stokes-Beard Elementary School on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to help prepare the meals. The volunteers came in shifts, and groups of them worked together to pull apart cooked turkeys, open cans of soup, crack eggs and do whatever else needed to be done around the kitchen to get the food ready for Thanksgiving.
Robin Lang is the food service supervisor for Columbus Municipal School District, and she has been in charge of cooking for the Turkey Drive for the last two years. She cooked 150 turkeys this year, 125 of which will become part of the meals delivered to elderly and disabled citizens on Thanksgiving. The other 50 will go to needy families, Sanders said.
Lang says she does the cooking in the holiday spirit of giving.
“‘Tis the season to be giving,” she said. “You can’t help but give back to people because people have helped me too.”
The meals which she and the many volunteers help put together and deliver include turkey, dressing, cornbread, green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls and water. Lang cooked 50 of the turkeys on Tuesday, along with the cornbread. The rest of the turkeys and the dressing she took care of Wednesday, when groups of volunteers dropped by Stokes-Beard from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to help prepare the meals. Sanders said she divided the volunteers into shifts and tried to limit each shift to 12 people.
The volunteers included officers from the CPD and Columbus Fire & Rescue, Mayor Robert Smith and plenty of others in the community. They pulled on plastic gloves and got right to work, chatting and laughing as Lang and the other cooks stayed busy near the ovens.
Throughout Thanksgiving Day, another set of volunteers will deliver the meals. Sanders plans for them to meet at 8 a.m. at Stokes-Beard to eat breakfast together before authorities with the CPD and Columbus Fire & Rescue give them their routes and assignments to make deliveries. CPD has a list of people who will receive meals, said Sanders.
Groups from organizations like Bank First and Fairview Baptist Church will make up some of the volunteers, Sanders said.
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