Volunteers hand out over 125 turkeys this year to those in need in

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    Scranton, PA (WNEP) — It was a cold Thursday morning in Frackville, but that did not keep a group of volunteers from trying to warm the hearts of others.

“I appreciate it very much,” Sharon Kupusnick of Frackville said. “Hard times are on everyone right now. I’d like to thank everyone out here who’s in the cold, giving people food.”

Thanks to a grant from the National Elks Foundation, the Frackville Elks Lodge handed out around 125 turkeys to families in need in this part of Schuylkill County. Now, instead of a subpar Thanksgiving, during what’s been a difficult year for many, there will be food on the table.

“A lot of these people are not working. They have kids, and the holiday is coming, so if we can do this little thing for these people, it makes us feel a hell of a lot better, too,” event coordinator Don Dudash said.

Cars were lined up for a couple of hours outside the Frackville food bank, waiting to get their free meals.

Koch’s Turkey Farm near Tamaqua delivered the turkeys for distribution.

“It’s sort of a weird feeling every Thanksgiving morning,” Brock Stein, Koch’s president, said. “It’s sort of chaos up until that point for us, so there’s always a minute on Thanksgiving when I think to myself, ‘there’s a lot of people having what we’re having right now,’ and this is our 81st Thanksgiving, so it means the world to us.”

Those who received free turkeys say they’re certainly appreciative as well.

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