Excerpted from Daily Pilot
By Andrew Turner
The holidays bring an infectious spirit of giving, something that community members have done well to observe for needy families from the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
As Thanksgiving approaches, the Power of One Foundation and more than 70 volunteers worked together to make sure that families would be able to put food on the table to celebrate it.
During Saturday’s Thanksgiving food distribution at the OC Fair & Event Center parking lot in Costa Mesa, more than 1,000 turkeys were given away. Attendees who had not preregistered were still given USDA combo food boxes, including fruits, vegetables, dairy products and protein items.
“Assemblywoman [Cottie] Petrie-Norris helped raise money for our foundation to pay for the turkeys, so they made a dent in what we paid for the turkeys,” Shawnee Witt, the operations director for the Power of One Foundation, said. “We got them wholesale, but we did purchase every turkey that we are giving away for Thanksgiving as a foundation.”
Participants who came through the food distribution lines remarked how quickly they were able to complete the process. More than a dozen volunteer stations were set up, and two lines separated those with appointments from those without them. Witt added that no one got turned away as long as there was still food to hand out.