November 25, 2005

Helping out for the holidays

Almaden Kiwanis, Key Club members help collect turkeys

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

Lots of people came out last Saturday to help the Almaden Kiwanians and Leland and Pioneer High School Key Club members make John Farley’s Turkey and Holiday Food Drive a true success.

Leland High School Key Club members junior James Wong, left, sophomore Esther Kiang, sophomore Christine Huang and Pioneer senior Tammie Vu join Almaden Valley Kiwanis Club member Bob Coelho during a lull in shopping. The volunteers were at the Almaden Oaks Plaza Albertson’s on Redmond and Meridan during this year’s John Farley’s Turkey and Holiday Food Drive.

Almaden residents donated more than 75 turkeys and over 500 pounds of food to the drive that netted 6,100 turkeys or about 105,000 pounds of the big bird throughout the Bay Area. That’s six times more than Farley collected last year.

In addition, the Second Harvest Food Banks of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties took in about half of their holiday season needs for turkey. Generous people also donated 50,000 pounds of non-perishable food and $10,500 in cash.

Farley, the meteorologist/weatherman on NBC 11’s nightly broadcasts, started the drive with his wife a couple of years ago. Last year, they worked with two stores and collected about 1,000 turkeys. This year, all 107 Albertsons’ stores in the Bay Area participated, along with about 2,000 Kiwanis and high school Key Club volunteers.

“Without the publicity from NBC11 and without the Kiwanis volunteers, we couldn’t have done this,” Farley told the Times. “I talk to lots of groups; they [Kiwanis members] are very impressive.”

Albertsons set up a two for one sale, offering customers the chance to buy one turkey and get the second one free and making it easier to donate. He also praised several other companies including Staples, which donated 100,000 flyers and Schwan’s Frozen Foods and Enterprise Rent-a-Car both of which donated trucks to get the trucks to various food banks.

Farley and the Kiwanians worked about two months to set up the drive. Once a week they would get together on a telephone conference call to plan the event.

And, it went off with very few hitches, he noted. Farley traveled around visiting customers and volunteers at many of the stores. One customer bought 24 turkeys for the drive, while others participated in the two for one sale and donated both turkeys while buying their family another bird. The average weight of the birds was 17.18 pounds, he added.

Almaden resident Jan Francis, left, donates money to the holiday food drive. Leland sophomore Ava Fung, a member of the school’s Key Club, graciously accepts the donation.

“I hope to do it again next year,” he said. “There were very few problems,” he added.

One of those was that some of the stores ran out of turkeys. “Overall, it didn’t happen much,” he said, “but about 10 of the stores ran out, in some cases, in the middle of the day.”

Farley also thought that turnout and donations would have been higher if the weather hadn’t been so warm. “It was too nice out to go shopping,” he said. “A cooler day probably would have generated more customers.”

Some of those donating observed that prices for the turkeys were higher this year. Last year the turkeys ran about $0.45 per pound, while this year the price was closer to $1 a pound. That may have affected some shopper’s buying decisions.

Those minor problems obviously weren’t important to the overall drive. Between the number of turkeys, the non-perishable food and the monetary donations, it was a strong showing for an area with lots to be thankful for.