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Thanksgiving Air Force Style

  • Published
  • By Danielle Gregory
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla., --  When Thanksgiving comes on an Air Force base, you can always find leadership at the dining hall, serving the troops. You can find wings, groups and squadrons gathered around a table in a hangar, breaking bread together. You can find Operation Warm Heart helping other Airmen. With the help of Network 56, 331 Tinker families had a much better Thanksgiving.

The annual Thanksgiving Food Basket program on Tinker makes food baskets with the ingredients to make a Thanksgiving meal for a family of eight. The baskets included cans of green beans, corn, yams, cranberry jelly, turkey gravy, marshmallows, mashed potatoes, stuffing mix and a 10-pound turkey. These baskets are important because they provide a meal for a family who would not be able to afford a Thanksgiving meal otherwise.

"This is a great way to give back to the Airmen that support us every day. It's also humbling. I was there once in my life, I think we all have been," said Master Sgt. Christopher Erickson, 3rd Combat Communications Support Squadron. For the drive to run smoothly, lead organizer Staff Sgt. Amanda Sumner held four food drives at the commissary.

"The drives were all on paydays, the busiest days at the commissary to collect items from shoppers. We made sure to open up the food drive and a volunteer and collected the items throughout the day and stored them in the chapel annex. Each squadron on base was asked to collect items, such as the 72nd Medical Group collecting green beans. That is where the bulk of our supply came from," said Sergeant Sumner.

By Nov. 21, enough food items had been collected to make approximately 780 food baskets. The leftover food will go toward making Christmas baskets. On that day, 28 volunteers from the 3rd CCG joined in on assembling the baskets. "We, as a military family, need to help each other when we can. With everyone donating a little bit it turns into a lot," said Tech. Sgt. Susan McCarter, 552nd Air Control Group.

The first sergeants had compiled a list of how many baskets they needed, and the final number was 331. The following Monday morning the First Sergeants Group went to the grocery store and purchased the turkeys for the baskets. The money for the turkeys was donated from the First Sergeants Group.

"The baskets were only meant to be given to the families that were in need this year. Last year, the turkeys were donated to us so they were able to fill a lot more. This year the First Sergeants Group had to pay for them, so we restricted the amount of baskets to the families that were really in need this holiday," said Sergeant Sumner.

The baskets were also delivered to families that were in need and the active duty member was deployed. The first sergeants delivered those personally to the homes of the deployed members. This program was only offered to active duty members. If any member is in need of assistance for next year's Thanksgiving, all they need to do is contact their first sergeant and they can add them to the list.