SYRACUSE (WSYR-TV) With Thanksgiving only a few days away now, more families are a little bit closer to having a traditional meal on the table. And one local church is making sure hundreds of families have the one staple that every Thanksgiving dinner needs.
It was moving day Sunday at the Oncenter, and the haul was frozen turkeys. Even though this year's giveaway didn't start until the afternoon, people began lining up much earlier.
Tacara Jones got in line at 8 o'clock in the morning. All in an effort to make sure she had a turkey to feed 14 people at her Thanksgiving dinner. And hundreds of other families from across Syracuse needed the help too.
“We really wouldn't have a Thanksgiving,” Edith Fletcher said when asked what she would do if the giveaway didn’t exist.
It’s a fact many are faced with every year. But it’s a situation one Syracuse church hopes to change.
River of Life Church has been organizing the event for years now, and it's grown tremendously. First, it gave away 500 turkeys. Then that number increased to 700. Now, up to 1000 more families will be able to enjoy a turkey on Thanksgiving.
Church volunteers had a lot of work to do. Around 800 families grabbed a bird when the lines started moving. And more were on their way.
“If 1001 show up. Well, next year we'll get the other one,” Pastor Danny Thornton said.
He may give out even more than that. The church hopes to expand the effort in the future by taking the giveaway to other locations across the state.
