“We can’t ourselves feed 100,000 people turkey at thanksgiving, but we can ask for help,” Miler Foods Inc. President and CEO Capri Brighenti said.
Avon’s Miller Farms has been in the turkey business for four generations.
“We have always gifted in one way shape or form, this year is just a little bit more structured,” Brighenti said.
A few years ago, the family business started working with Connecticut Foodshare, donating turkeys through a simple buy-one, give-one format. They said last year, they were able to feed roughly 50,000 people, but realized they could help even more.
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“What we’ve discovered is people really want to give more and they’re asking for that. They’re saying, 'hey, we’d love to give more if you had a nonprofit. Do you have a nonprofit?'” Brighenti said.
This year, they answered the call, creating Miller Farms Cares. Establishing a nonprofit has allowed them to increase their turkey-giving goals in 2023. This year, they’ve set out to feed 100,000 people by donating roughly 5,000 turkeys to Connecticut Foodshare.
“Our goal statewide this year is to collect and distribute 50,000 turkeys, and this puts a huge dent in it,” CT Foodshare President and CEO Jason Jakubowski said. “They’re donating 5,000 turkeys to us. That is the single largest turkey donation that anybody is making this year.”
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To participate, Brighenti said people can either gift a turkey through the farm’s website, or donate money to the nonprofit.
“We always make sure that whatever people purchase or donate, we actually turn that into turkey,” she said.
That money will then be used to buy turkeys for Connecticut Foodshare. So far, they’ve donated enough turkeys to feed nearly 65,000 people.
This year, Connecticut Foodshare said there’s an even bigger need, with many of the government’s COVID-era benefits now gone away.
“They provided food banks with a tremendous amount of food. Those boxes of food that we were giving out at those drive-thru distributions was all free food provided to us through the government. That’s not there anymore. We’re back to what we would call normal operations, and the need is definitely high,” Jakubowski said.
According to Jakubowski, there are roughly 400,000 people throughout Connecticut who experience food insecurity–a problem that’s highlighted around Thanksgiving, but exists throughout the year.
“Most of our pantries are telling us, they’re seeing longer lines, not just because of the holidays, but they’re seeing longer lines, period,” Jakubowski said.
