After the usual meticulous preparations, including pickup of tables, chairs, A-frames and boxing materials plus their colorful labels, the 2023 Annual Thanksgiving Food Drive was kicked off on Saturday Nov 18th, with several lions and friends manning the doors of three longtime partner stores: Lucky’s on El Camino, Lucky’s at Pruneridge and Lunardi’s in Los Gatos. In the meantime, another crew under the guidance of Lions Jen and Charles started to build and label 360 boxes at the Odd Fellows Hall, which was once again rented out to the Lions free-of-charge for this major project.
Food and money donations trickled in slowly at first, considering the high cost of groceries these days, but we had already budgeted for some extra shopping.
The food collections continued on Sunday for half a day at the two Lucky stores, while the packaging and boxing at the Hall was greatly supported by youngsters, friends, and other Lions club members. The remaining perishable goods were picked up with the refrigerated truck, skillfully maneuvered by Lion Jeff.
Monday’s crews completed the boxes with perishables and all 360 boxes were loaded strategically in the big truck, the last deliveries in the back, the first ones just behind the truck door. Lion Jeff led the small convoy, following a preplanned itinerary to six different destinations, offloading between 20 and 90 boxes at the locations, with the help of Lions Charles, Kent and Ray, and eager support from the recipients.
At about 12:30pm, Lion Jeff proclaimed the successful conclusion of the distribution drive.
A pretty good amount of excess food donations will be delivered to the Farm Worker Families this week.
The club is grateful for all the support from the volunteers, their friends and families, without their efforts, this event would not have been possible.
We are also thankful for every donation, food and $$$, big and small, including internet pledges, and very appreciative of all the help from Lucky’s personnel and management as well as Lucky’s and Lunardi’s shoppers.
Here is a very heart-warming story, submitted by Lion Kent
“Fellow Lions,
A very giving man, Tilo Bormann, approached our table at the El Camino Lucky Store this afternoon (Sat Nov 18th) offering to pay for a shopping cart full of whatever we needed, provided we did the shopping. Lion Joan offered. The total, including three turkeys, came to $410.19. Tilo returns to his home in Germany tomorrow (Sunday). I forwarded the three attached photos with deep thanks to him by text, to which he replied:
“It was a pleasure to help. I hope it will help some families and motivate many others also to join your Lions club. I’m really thankful that people like you exist that sacrifice their own time to help others. This earns a lot of respect. Many greetings to the others. Tilo”
PS: Tilo has given us permission to post his story and pictures on our website.
