FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) – The Fairbanks Community Food Bank distributed a record number of turkeys and other holiday foods to Interior tables this year through the Thanksgiving Food Box Program.
On Wednesday, approximately 200 volunteers filtered in and out of the warehouse to pack a total of 109,076 pounds of donated food into individual boxes. Sporting their hats, gloves and coats, dozens more volunteers manned parking lots at First Presbyterian Church in Fairbanks and Lord of Life Lutheran Church in North Pole to give out the meals throughout the day.
At 4 p.m. — the time when distribution was supposed to wrap up — exhaust was still rising over First Presbyterian Church in downtown Fairbanks as cars and trucks waited their turn for turkey in a row flanked by orange traffic cones. The line even spilled into 7th Avenue.
At the other end of the lot, closer to 8th Avenue, cardboard boxes full of food and turkeys wrapped in plastic sat in large stacks, ready to be handed off to families when they drove through.
Unbothered by the cold and dark, the volunteers appeared happy to lug turkeys and greet families as they came by.
“Seeing the people smile, all this, this is a fantastic experience,” said Adrian Gonzalez, with Fort Wainwright BOSS (Better Opportunities for Single Servicemembers).
The previous record for Thanksgiving food box distribution came in 2020, likely a result of the COVID pandemic, according to Weaver. That year, the food bank gave out 2,544 boxes to households in the Golden Heart.
At 4:19 p.m. on Wednesday, back at the food bank’s main building, CEO Anne Weaver got word of the final numbers for 2023, just as the last volunteers of the day were disseminating for cleanup.
She wrote the tally on a yellow, presentation-sized notepad. Then she stood up.
“This year is 3,099 boxes, 109,000 pounds,” she said. “There is no way we could do this without this community. This is — this is profound,” Weaver continued.
The CEO also mentioned that, unlike some years, the food bank received enough donations of turkey to include one with every single Thanksgiving box. The adequate turkey stock came as a bit of a surprise to Weaver, who pointed to wider economic trends to contextualize the meaning of the donated goods.
“We had it to share and we had the volunteers to pack it, simply because people care. Prices are higher, and the community gave anyway,” she said.
Using the average price of a 16-pound turkey, the 3,099 birds alone convert to $84,757 in donations.
USDA data shows grocery prices in October 2023 across the nation are 2.1 percent higher than in October 2022, while national inflation statistics for all items are coming in around 3.2 percent, according to the most recent reports.
The story in Alaska might be a bit different, though, with the Anchorage CPI showing a 2.2 percent drop in grocery prices and a 1.1 percent increase in prices overall. Those price surveys only cover the Anchorage area and Mat-Su Borough, however, and not necessarily price trends in Fairbanks.
Also, though the rate of change isn’t as high in Alaska, the state’s cities consistently rank among the highest in the U.S for grocery prices. A cost-of-living index from this year found that Fairbanks has the 10th most expensive groceries in the nation, for instance.
Yet the food bank received and distributed 22 percent more boxes filled with donated food than in the former record year, divvying out all the Thanksgiving food so that people could ring in the holiday with its most commonly enjoyed dishes.
Copyright 2023 KTVF. All rights reserved.