Farm To Table: Annual Turkey Drop Set For Saturday in Orleans

ORLEANS – When Sassandra “Sassy” Roach first heard that the Lower Cape Outreach Council was looking to collect Thanksgiving turkeys for families in need, she got on social media and organized a collection through her family’s business, The Farm.

That was eight years ago. Little did she know then it would be the start of a celebrated local tradition.

“Tons of turkeys came in, and then I thought ‘We’ve got to do it again,’' said Roach. “Then people started to call saying ‘When’s your turkey drive?’”

This year’s annual “Turkey Drop” will be held at The Farm on Rock Harbor Road on Saturday. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., visitors can drop off turkeys for distribution to families in need on the Lower and Outer Cape through the council.

Katie Wibby, the council’s CEO, said 160 turkeys were collected through the drive last year. This year, she’s hoping the event can bring in at least 200 turkeys for the council.

“We can’t thank Sassy and her team at The Farm more,” Wibby said. “She really runs with this. She takes over all the planning. She does her best to advertise it. She takes total ownership of it, and they do a great job of tracking how much comes in.”

The council partners with nine food pantries from Harwich out to Provincetown, where families can sign up to receive a turkey. Wibby said the council helped provide Thanksgiving meals to 547 families last year. This year, she expects the demand to increase to 600 families.

The council gets some help from the Greater Boston Food Bank, which Wibby said is expected to provide the nonprofit with an additional 100 turkeys. The council will purchase the remaining turkeys as needed to meet this year’s demand, she said.

While turkeys are synonymous with Thanksgiving and the holiday season, Roach said the annual Turkey Drop is less about the impending holiday and more about helping neighbors.

“For us, it’s just a special day because so many families participate,” she said. “It’s not as much about thinking about the holiday as it is thinking about the community.”

This year’s drop comes as the need for the council’s services continues to grow locally. The council is serving about 1,000 clients per month on average this year, Wibby said. That’s a 50 percent increase in service from the prior year.

Factors including inflation and the rising cost of food, housing and utilities are increasingly putting a financial strain on families, Wibby said.

“Folks are already looking at choosing between paying a utility bill and the rent or mortgage or groceries,” added Karen Ross, who is in her third year coordinating the Turkey Drop for the council. “Now they’re being asked to subsidize a feast. It’s just nice for us to be able to help.”

Meanwhile, state and federal benefits for eligible families through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have also been reduced to pre-pandemic levels, even as food insecurity statewide has grown from 19 percent before the pandemic to 34 percent today, according to statistics from the Greater Boston Food Bank.

“Our mission is to provide emergency assistance to those in need of support,” Wibby said. “We’re going to continue to fundraise and do the best we can to meet the increased demand.”

As a family-friendly event, Roach said the Turkey Drop also offers an educational opportunity to children about the importance of giving back to their community and helping those in need.

“I have all these pictures from over the years of kids with their turkeys,” she said. “It’s just awesome.”

Ross said a large box truck will be onsite at The Farm on Saturday. At the end of the event, turkeys and other food items will be transported to an icehouse in Provincetown, where they will stay until they’re ready to be distributed to families.

“As folks come in with the frozen turkeys, they put them on the back of the truck,” she said. “We have blankets that keep them cold for the three-hour time period. The blankets come from the Greater Boston Food Bank so they’re designed for that.”

Ross said turkeys and other boxed-up food items will be given out to families from Nov. 16 to 18.

Next year, the hope is the council will be able to cold store the turkeys on their own. The council has secured $100,000 in state funds for the purchase of a refrigerated truck, Wibby said.

“That’s going to help with our distribution throughout our area,” she said.

Apart from turkeys and other food items, Roach said monetary donations are also being accepted for the council.

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com