By Todd Travis
This month, Servant’s Heart of Indy is offering a turkey drive-through for the 20th consecutive year. The nonprofit has already seen a record year to serve over 25,000 lives so far through October. That trend is continuing as they have received a record request for 685 meals to be provided for families this Thanksgiving.
“In a normal year, we usually see about 500 requests for meals. This year, we blew right past that 500 all the way to 685. So I expanded to buy more gift certificates and more food to do at least 600, but 85 of these families are going to be on the waiting list,” said Bill Boone, founder of Servant’s Heart.
courtesy of Servant’s Heart of Indy’s Facebook
page)
The Thanksgiving meals consist of green beans, corn, yams, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, a turkey gift certificate and sugar cream pies. Volunteers have a packing party on Friday night at Hornet Park Community Center. They set up all the products that have been received in stages. The next morning, they build the boxes, fill them and distribute in the afternoon.
“We usually do three cars at a time in the drive through and we get through 500 families in two to three hours, so it’s become a well-oiled machine,” Boone mentioned.
By Nov. 16, all products must be received by Servant’s Heart. A spreadsheet of the current need is listed on Servant’s Heart Facebook page (facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064761576241) To donate food, please check the spreadsheet to see what is still needed. Servant’s Heart is also looking for about 100 volunteers for Nov. 19 to assist with the drive. If interested in volunteering, email info@servantsheartindy.org and you will be sent a link to a signup genius where you can choose to join.
“We’re also looking for food to feed the volunteers. We don’t want to take food away from the drive, so we ask for donations to help feed the volunteers as well,” Boone explained.
For information about Servant’s Heart and links to donate, visit their website: servantsheartofindy.org.
