PHOENIX — St. Mary's Food Bank served 4,024 families at their Phoenix and Surprise locations on the first of their three-day holiday Food Distribution for Thanksgiving.
People got up before the sun, to wait in line for hours to get food for their Thanksgiving meal.
"Times are hard right now. I lost my job to do COVID and you know, I have my mother live take care of right now. She had three strokes last year. So it's been a little hard with money tight and everything's going up you know inflation," said one woman who got there before 6:00a.m.
"We don't have the money to buy a turkey this year, so that's why we came to wait in line," said another man.
Every year St. Mary's feeds thousands in the Valley, and this year they're expecting to give out 18,000 turkeys.
"Been a lot of years, we've been doing the Thanksgiving distribution," said St. Mary's Food Bank President and Ceo, Tom Kertis, "And this year is just like the rest. There's a lot of need in our community. And we're thankful because of our donors, we're able to be here to help the people in need."
Distribution will begin again Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. at their Knight Center in Phoenix and continue on Wednesday as well.
St. Mary's is also still more than 2,000 turkeys shy of their goal.
People can drop off donations at the food bank warehouse on Tuesday and Wednesday.
