Turkey giveaways helping thousands of Chicago area families prepare for Thanksgiving
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Are you already preparing for Thanksgiving dinner? Non-profits certainly are, giving out thousands of turkeys around Chicago and the suburbs on Saturday.
A line wrapped around the corner at St. Sabina Church in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, some people waiting hours for a free turkey, including Helen May who was first in line at 6 a.m. for the giveaway that officially started at noon.
"Too early. Too early. I thought there would be a whole bunch of people. You gotta come early. I came too early," May said.
St. Sabina handed out 1,000 turkeys donated by movie director Spike Lee, offering a helping hand when grocery prices are still high.
"Yeah, yeah. That's a big problem. They're going up, but you gotta do what you gotta do," Brenda Lester said as she waited for her turkey.
There is some good news as you start to plan your holiday meal. Experts say they expect that Thanksgiving meals should cost less this year than last. Prices are down for the second year in a row.
However, the cost is still estimated to be 19% higher than it was five years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic sent inflation surging.
"We understand the struggle, we understand the pain, but we are here for you," said Deontae Tanner, CEO of Servants for Hope, which hosted its own turkey giveaway at Englewood STEM High School on Saturday.
Tanner bought more than 600 turkeys for his Englewood giveaway.
"I'm excited to see all of these disappear," he said.
Servants for Hope hit up several grocery stores at a time this week to make sure they had all the food they needed, packing their truck until 1 a.m. Saturday before their 8th annual turkey giveaway.
In addition to frozen turkeys, they gave out canned food and warm coats, some of which went into the back of Dajay Thomas' car, since they will be celebrating with 20 people this Thanksgiving.
"It was special, actually. Something special," Thomas said.
Meantime, it was a neighborhood effort to provide Thanksgiving meals for families in West Humboldt Park and Austin. Black Men United and volunteers from Rush University Medical Center teamed up with Amazon to hand out 400 turkeys, along with sides and fresh produce.
Volunteers were also busy on Saturday making sure thousands of families in the suburbs have a meal on the table for Thanksgiving.
Teams of people spent the day packing boxes of food for a project called the Basket Brigade. On Sunday, drivers will fan out across the northwest suburbs delivering meals. In all, the group expects to feed about 9,000 people this holiday.