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Thanksgiving for Thousands is a record-breaker
Hundreds of volunteers work Mountaire assembly lines to pack meal boxes for those in need
Volunteers grab vegetables, stuffing and all the other fixings to be packed into meal boxes Nov. 22 during Mountaire Farms’ Thanksgiving for Thousands. RON MACARTHUR PHOTOS
November 25, 2021
More than 150 volunteers turned out Nov. 22 to pack food boxes during the annual Mountaire Farms Thanksgiving for Thousands program at the Selbyville warehouse.
By the end of the day, those volunteers packed each of the 10,000 boxes with a meal for a family of four. All boxes were loaded into refrigerated trailers and transported to sites throughout Sussex County for distribution to families in need.
In all, at distribution events on Delmarva and in North Carolina, Mountaire will distribute 26,000 meals, the most ever in the more than two decades of the event.
It’s an intense, nonstop flurry of activity as volunteers pack boxes on one of four assembly lines.
It’s hard to believe, but all of the boxes filled with supplies will become Thanksgiving meal containers.
Dozens of volunteers shifted jobs from packing on Nov. 22 to delivering Mountaire’s Thanksgiving for Thousands food boxes on Nov. 23 at distribution sites throughout Sussex County.
Volunteers load food boxes Nov. 23 at the Crossroad Community Church distribution center near Georgetown.
Keeping volunteers supplied with meal boxes is a constant job at the Crossroad Community Church distribution site.
Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, R-Georgetown, lends a hand on an assembly line.
Chuckie Emerson of Bridgeville is at the end of the line handing Mountaire roaster chickens to other volunteers.
Volunteers pass filled boxes along a table to be stacked and transported to a waiting trailer.
Mountaire Farms President Phil Plylar helps out as well, setting up a pallet to stack packed food boxes on.
Chris White of Dover begins to stack another pallet of meal boxes.
The event has grown so large, besides packing in the large warehouse, assembly lines are set up in a roomy tent as well.
Nearly 30 volunteers staff each table as meal boxes are being packed.
Hundreds of boxes of Thanksgiving meal essentials are ready to be unpacked.
Matthew Burns, a student at Worcester Preparatory School, joins with fellow students to volunteer at the event.
