CLIFTON, Colo. (KREX) — “I literally had tears in my eyes because we were out [of turkeys].” Jackie Feaster runs the Clifton Christian Church Food Bank, and the week before Thanksgiving she still needed over 100 turkeys to feed the community.
So she reached out to the Grand Junction Rotary Club, who had already been helping out the food bank by putting together boxes of dry goods. “We thought, let’s put up $100 each to go buy some turkeys, see if we can ease the situation,” said Cliff Anson, a Rotary Club member.
At the club lunch meeting the next day, everyone followed suit, they had just raised $3,200 overnight.
“We had enough money to buy 130 turkeys and so my next problem was where do you get 130 turkey’s the week before Thanksgiving?” Anson said.
He went all over town but was only able to find 30 turkeys. How hard can it be to find 100 turkeys a week before Thanksgiving?
“It seemed to me, personally, that there was divine intervention at work here…” – Cliff Anson.
Anson went to one last Safeway were a meat counter employee, sympathetic to the Club’s cause, convinced the manager to sell 100 turkeys to Anson and the Rotary Club. Now that the flock’s size had reached 130 strong, they flew east to Clifton and the church’s food bank.
“It was life-changing, those 100 turkeys we got to give out,” said Feaster. Thanks to the help of the Grand Junction Rotary Club and other donators the Clifton Christian Church Food Bank was able to give out 540 turkeys and help 5,000 families this holiday season.
“…it’s just that, I couldn’t have done this on my own, that’s for sure.” – Cliff Anson.