Food Donations Always Needed Throughout Holidays

INDIO This week, families will sit down and give thanks for what they have.

“We’ve been abundantly blessed with turkeys,” says Darla Burkett with the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission.

About 800 frozen turkeys if you’re counting. But themission still needs help, so that hundreds of less fortunate people can have a happy Thanksgiving dinner.

“We need pies, butter, whipped cream, paper goods and all the trimmings, marshmallows, brown sugar, everything you can imagine on your table we’d like for our tables,” Burkett says.

They’ve seen a 37% jump of families in need, making it more difficult for them to provide and forcing them to stretch what they’ve got.

“I’ve got at least 100 people out there now waiting for a food basket with a turkey, so we can always use them because we also use turkeys at Christmas time. We never have too much, we can always use them,” says Burkett

At Well in the Desert in Palm Springs, donations are not as abundant as before. But they prepared and are set for Thanksgiving.

“For quite some time, we’ve been collecting turkeys, finding sales, people have been bringing them in and we’ve been buying anything that can be discounted to the point that we can afford it. We’ve been, not hoarding, but saving everything,” says Arlene Rosenthal with Well in the Desert.

Now, they look ahead.

“We’re looking ahead for Christmas, yes. Food donations don’t really come in an abundantly at Christmas time as they do at Thanksgiving so we’d certainly welcome more turkeys if people have extras and everything else that goes with the turkey dinner,” says Burkett.

“I just want to thank our desert community because they have blessed us,” she says.