PRESTON – Thanksgiving for most people is a great time of year. Families gather and enjoy good food, friends and family. For Todd Lundahl and his family this time of year they spend time giving to families who might not have a Thanksgiving meal otherwise.
Some 125 families in Franklin County lined up at Preston’s Archery Building last Friday and took home free food boxes for a Thanksgiving dinner. It’s been a 13-year tradition for the families that collect donations and organize them into boxes for the people that get them.
There is a sense of pride for the people who fill the boxes and hand them out.
The food boxes are due to the generosity of Todd Lundahl, president of Lundahl Building. He rounded up family, friends and a list of businesses that put together the food boxes.
“We’ve been doing it since 2009,” he said. “We came up here and looked at the food pantry before Thanksgiving and there was not much in it.”
The first year they gave out turkeys and it has grown to include a food box when more businesses got involved.
Last Thursday evening about 50 family and friends showed up to organize the boxes to meet the size of the family. They filled the boxes with items from Gossner Foods, Stokes Market, and Schreiber Foods. Donations also came from Casper’s Ice Cream, Theurer’s Quality Meats, Macey’s, The Home Depot and Gilt Flour Mill.
Lundahl included Lundahl Iron Works Company, Nick Lloyd, Steve Aust, Edge Excavation and finally Lee’s Marketplace.
“I have a list of people and the first thing I do is mark out the names so no one knows who they are helping,” he said. “Then we mark the box with how many people in the family and fill the boxes to meet the size of the family.”
On Friday morning, about 25 volunteers helped move the boxes into the cars lined up to get their dinner boxes.
“You should have seen it. They were lined up clear out to the highway,” he said. “We have great people who come out and help us put these boxes together.”
As the boxes went out of the building the families of Paisley Johnson handed out a turkey breast; Courtney Coulson, Bryce Douglas and Layne Jorgensen handed out Fat Boy ice cream; and, Todd Lundahl handed out pies.
Steve Aust, the director of the Preston Community Food Pantry, was checking the items in the boxes to make sure there was enough food for the number of people the box was for as they were delivered to the waiting cars.
“The potatoes came from Nick Lloyd, a producer in Grace,” Aust said. “People have really been generous with donations this year.”
Taya, Teresa and Tosha Lundahl were busy on the phone calling the few people who needed to come by and pick up their boxes.
“Those three ladies are the force and brains of this operation,” he said. “They are really good at this and make things happen,”
As the team finished their work, they put up the tables and cleaned up the hall and everyone cleared out after a day of service. For the recipients they will have something to be thankful for this Thursday.