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ORLEANS — Thanks to a flood of donations, Thanksgiving dinner came together for almost 700 Lower Cape families on Monday.
The annual drive-through food distribution by the Lower Cape Outreach Council drew about 100 more people than last year to St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, council human services manager Janice Perkins said.
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A worrisome 100-turkey shortfall was erased last week by generous donors who brought in cash or turkeys, Perkins said. The donations meant that the council didn’t have to tap its own cash to buy turkeys, she said.
“It gives so many people a nice feeling for the price of a turkey,” said the council’s executive director, Larry Marsland.
“For the past two weeks, there have been 10 to 20 turkeys walking in through the door every day,” he said. “I want to give credit to Stop Shop Corporation, which donated 350 turkeys to the greater Boston Food Bank, but designated them for us. That was our kickoff. Then the public came up with the other 350 turkeys.”
About 50 volunteers directed traffic around the circular church driveway. Local councils on aging and organizations that serve children had picked up dinners for others earlier in the day, Perkins said.
The agency, founded in 1980, serves clients from Harwich through Provincetown through its food pantries and other programs.
There were a lot of smiles and thanks given as the prequalified clients traded their vouchers for a holiday meal. A carpenter said he couldn’t do manual labor any more because of his rheumatoid arthritis and that his Social Security wasn’t enough. One friend came by to pick up a meal for a family of five because the mother was working.
In all, Perkins estimated that each recipient got $100 worth of food, distributed by volunteers at several food stations along the driveway.
At the first stop, clients got two days’ worth of food from the church’s St. Vincent de Paul Society. Next came cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing and other holiday essentials, collected and donated by members of Nauset Newcomers. Then there was bread from Pain D’Avignon and Cumberland Farms, and potatoes from the Birdwatchers General Store. Another station had ham, hot dogs, steak and other meat. And finally, there was a heap of frozen turkeys and vegetables from the council’s food pantries.
Photographer Christine Hochkeppel contributed to this report.