On a rainy Saturday morning, the good mood in the San Francisco parking lot of St. Emydius Church spread like wildfire.
All of that was possible because of Pierre Smut, a man from San Francisco who started a turkey drive every year in 2012.
“Over the last four years, we’ve collected over 5,000 turkeys,” he told me. “People in this city are hungry.” People are hungry everywhere. But I wanted to focus on the neighborhood where we are. “That’s significant to me.”
The food and turkeys that are collected are given to the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, which then gives them to neighborhood groups.
“It could be Project Open Hand, it could be St. Anthony’s Foundation, it could be GLIDE, it could be any organization that cooks food for the people who need it the most,” he stated.
Not only does he want to help, he also wants to give others the chance to do the same. Joshua Phillips is thankful that he can help people who are having a hard time.
“It makes me feel like I can give them something to be thankful for,” he stated.
The SF-Marin Food Bank says that about 1 in 5 people are not sure where their next meal is coming from.
They have to choose between paying their rent and getting food, which is not easy. “In fact, we’ve seen that the need has grown since the pandemic,” said Chief Philanthropy and Engagement Officer Chris Padula.
It doesn’t matter if it’s food, money, or time, he says. There’s a lot more that a dollar can do than you might think.
“The great thing right now is we have matches,” he stated. “Many givers are matching gifts. That is, a $10 donation turns into a $20 donation, which makes 40 meals.
Once they got back to the turkey drive, Smit told them he has no plans to quit any time soon.
“I’ve done it for 13 years and I hope to keep going for a long time, yes,” he added. “The day began with 440 turkeys.” By the end of the drive today, we hope to have reached 800-900.
On Dec. 21, he’s having another turkey drive. The event will take place at the 350 De Montfort Ave. in San Francisco’s St. Emydius Church from 9 a.m. to noon.