PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — The Big Heart Brigade has been helping feed the community for Thanksgiving for 28 years.
However this Thanksgiving will be different because of the pandemic. Thomas DeRita said, "With COVID going on the way it is, you can't have 600, 700 volunteers at a time. We were also losing the site that we had. Palm Beach Gardens was going to build a fire facility there in the back, so we moved our equipment." The organization is still helping the community, they're doing that by joing forces with Palm Beach Harvest.
"So we've been giving out meals, but they have been packaged meals, going into the communities like Belle Glade, Pahokee, South Bay," said DeRita.
Deborah Morgan is with Palm Beach Harvest Inc.
"Well, we were using their grill for a while and they were cooking for us. They were barbecuing and so that was marvelous to help us cook some food to get it to us so we could distribute it," she said.
Morgan says the organizations are getting ready for Thanksgiving through area churches. "We're taking reservations so we are giving away turkeys and a box of produce and food enough to last a week for a family of six," she said.
DeRita says, "We will reach out to other communities that need it and it will either be with Palm Beach Harvest giving out the meals in baskets or we will be cooking when we can do it in smaller environments."
For more information on the Big Heart Brigade, visit https://bigheartbrigade.com/volunteer/ and for Palm Beach Harvest, call 561-310-6641.