Food for those in need is always welcome, especially during the holidays, so a turkey giveaway event on Sunday at the Prisco Community Center in Aurora was just the thing to make the season brighter for folks like Beverly Lesure.
“I’m getting this for my brother because he’s always looked out for me,” Lesure, of Aurora, said during the turkey giveaway organized by the city of Aurora in partnership with Loaves & Fishes and the Aurora Hispanic Heritage Advisory Board. “I’m pretty impressed with how they put this together and are helping the community and giving back. That’s one thing we all must do – look out for and help each other.”
The event was also bolstered by support from local resident and former basketball star Kenny Battle from the National Basketball Retired Players Organization.
Jon Zaghloul, communications manager for the city of Aurora, said the event was a group effort.
“We are especially appreciative of our community partners, especially Loaves & Fishes and Kenny Battle as well as the Aurora Hispanic Heritage Advisory Board for putting this all together,” he said. “We appreciate the generosity of all of our community partners for organizing all of this on shorter notice than usual and working together to take care of community members in need.
“Having Kenny Battle be involved adds a little star power and it’s great to see him continue to give back to the community,” Zaghloul said. “He’s been doing so for so many years and is a star who grew up in Aurora and went all the way to the NBA and now lives locally.”
Lizette Mendoza, project assistant for community services for the city of Aurora, said this was the first time the event has been offered.
“There was an outreach by some of the partners we’re working with and we tried to put this together,” Mendoza said. “There was some extra funding that they wanted to utilize so obviously we got in touch with Loaves & Fishes and tried to coordinate how we could make it happen. There was a quick turnaround, but obviously there is a need out there and we might as well work to bring our resources to the community.”
Mendoza spoke about the partnership with the Hispanic Heritage Advisory Board as well as the Retired Players Organization and said that Battle is “very passionate about helping the community.”
She added that organizers hoped to offer more food assistance including side dishes but that time constraints this year made that impossible.
“Hopefully with a little more attention next year we can do something different,” she said. “At this point, giving turkeys away from Loaves & Fishes was all that they could do.”
Nearly two dozen volunteers were on hand Sunday including Nicole Mullins, chief community services officer for Aurora, who said that despite not having a lot of preparation time, “We’re pulling this off.”
“The important thing is we’re going to have turkeys for the holidays. As far as I can tell it’s perfect. We had a lot of volunteers show up,” Mullins said as she and others unloaded a van with turkeys packed in plastic bags. “As far as volunteers, we also have members of the Aurora Hispanic Heritage Advisory Board and the West Aurora basketball team and city employees and community volunteers.”
Albert Rios was another volunteer on hand who said that he “wanted to come out and help. It seemed like a good event and might be a little hectic giving food away to people, so I wanted to help make it go smoothly.”
“Having food assistance this time of year – the way things are going – I feel like everybody needs a little help,” he said. “Family budgets are kind of tight so maybe getting the main course out of the way will make it easier.”
James Centanni of Aurora said he found out about the event through social media and was happy to get a turkey despite the fact that he lives alone.
He admitted cooking a turkey would be something new for him.
“There are directions on the package as I understand it,” he said with a laugh. “I’m by myself and I didn’t want to buy a big turkey for just me. Hopefully there are some here that are small. I’ve never made one, but they told me there are directions on the package. Maybe someone can come over and help me eat it.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
