Thanksgiving basket giveaway helps the needy

By Carrie A. Mizell

With six children at home, including a 16-day old miracle baby, Debra Burney was very grateful to the Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Volunteers for providing food for her family’s Thanksgiving Day table.
“My new baby is a miracle baby because he was born with the cord wrapped around his neck,” Burney said on Monday, as she loaded her Thanksgiving meal into the back of her mother’s car. “It’s hard having six children, but we are very thankful this year that we have a healthy new baby.”

Sheriff’s Volunteers Director Gerry Kiernan

Burney was one of 325 families to receive plastic bags filled with frozen turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, corn, fruit and cornbread. The Sheriff’s volunteers also provided food for two group homes and a meal for children at Trenton’s First Place Academy.
While the Sheriff’s Volunteers provide Thanksgiving baskets for more families in need each year, the list of applicants continues to grow as families in this community face hard times. In all, the volunteers received 1260 applications from families in need in Gilchrist County this year.
“It’s a very difficult process to determine who is most severely in need,” explained Gerry Kiernan, director of the Sheriff’s Volunteers.
The volunteers accept referrals from local schools and churches, the Suwannee River Economic Council and local food pantries. For the first time ever, the volunteers accepted direct applications this year from families in need.
With help from community partners like Palms Medical Group, the Trenton Food Pantry, Trenton High School Beta Cub and Scaffs Supermarket, the volunteers are able to provide Thanksgiving dinners each year. This year the Gilchrist County Woman’s Club, Character Council and the Trenton Rotary Club chipped in to provide foil roasting pans for the families receiving dinners.
Though the volunteers have been raising money and planning the Thanksgiving drive since June, their work really began on Friday when 10 volunteers gathered to pack baskets. Then on Monday the volunteers handed out Thanksgiving dinner supplies to families who stopped in at the Sheriff’s Shooting Range for pick-up. On Tuesday and Wednesday Sheriff’s volunteers delivered Thanksgiving baskets to individuals who are homebound throughout the county.
“You hear a lot of stories while you’re doing this,” said volunteer Troy Breton.
Cindy Slaughter can attest to that fact. As she carried bags and roasting pans full of food to cars on Monday she had citizens tell her of their hard times. Like the proud Vietnam veteran who walked slowly with a cane and told of his hot water heater going out last week and his dog dying.
Slaughter, like the other volunteers, offered the man a friendly smile, a hearty meal and sincere wish for a happy Thanksgiving.