With the Thanksgiving holiday just over a week away, the Buffalo City Mission is preparing to serve up thousands of meals. On Tuesday, three local companies delivered 300 turkeys to help support the cause.
Each company delivered 100 turkeys to City Mission: Airport Taxi, Just Pizza and NOCO Energy. They will be used by City Mission to serve more than 4,000 meals. An estimated 3,500 will be delivered, according to City Mission officials, while up to 900 people are expected to be served in their downtown facility's dining room.
"We have delivery teams which, in many cases, are made up of families or neighbors or people that go to church together," said Stuart Harper, executive director of City Mission. "They go out into the community and deliver meals and, in many cases, those meals and those people are the only ones the people they deliver to will see on Thanksgiving."
Just Pizza vice president Mark Campanella pointed out that his company began doing this about a dozen years ago. It's an appropriate gesture, as they see it, to give back to the local community.
"That's how we look at it," he said. "Buffalo and Western New York has been good to us. We started in 1992 and we haven't looked back. This is a way to give back to a community that has been good to us. We've been fortunate, and there's a lot of people who aren't quite as fortunate."
One of the reasons behind the participants' decision to donate to City Mission is the knowledge that it will stay local, said a representative of another company taking part in the donation.
"I feel that anything that we donate at this point goes directly to the community," said Frank Bona, secretary at Airport Taxi Service. "These turkeys in particular will be cooked and served, and that's what we like."
Shortly after delivering the turkeys, volunteers stayed to help prepare and serve hot turkey lunches to City Mission clients.
