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Turkey Time at Food Shelf

Burlington, Vermont - November 21, 2009

 The recession has taken its toll on many Vermont families, but many are pulling together to make the holiday season enjoyable for everyone. Some of that generosity was on display at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf as truck loads of donations were delivered Saturday morning.

The non-profit which serves low income families in Chittenden County set a goal of 2,700 turkeys for the 2009 thanksgiving season, and say that after a last minute push, they they are confident they will meet their goal.

"We had six shopping carts - we went through the line caused a huge scene everyone - thought it was great. We got out to the truck and we had to get a U-Haul and we realized we were at 98 and my husband and I were like - there's no way we're gonna let that go so we ran back inside to get two more turkeys to make it an even 100," said Mauranda Dalzeil.

The Dalzeil family started a tradition last year of collecting money in their community to buy turkeys to donate to the food shelf. They decided to more than double their last year's goal of 400 pounds to 1000 pounds.

Food Shelf officials weren't expecting large donations because of the recession.

"We actually exceeded our goal by 500 pounds so every single person said yes. One person said no and her daughter came up and gave us a dollar it was like her only dollar this little girl had. Its huge. Every little big helps and that's what we really wanted to stress," Dalzeil said.

Individuals efforts like that of the Delzel family really make a difference during times like these when the food shelf is seeing and even greater increase in the need for help from Vermonters."We've had a real demand in our services. We've seen about 2000 more people coming to see us in the past two years. So basically we're seeing a lot more families and the majority of people we serve are children," said Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf Director, Rob Meehan.

The Food Shelf needs more than just turkeys. Their dollar donations are not what they were hoping to see and they say the economy is to blame. "I think the reason we're not seeing the monetary donations that we've seen in the past is directly related to the economy and its really hard for people with low incomes right now with the added stress of holiday meals, buying gifts and things like that," Meehan said.

The Food Shelf will be accepting donations and distributing turkeys through Wednesday as they continue to assist low-income families during this holiday season.

Molly Smith - WCAX News