Six hundred turkeys.
That’s this year’s total goal for Russell Rowland Inc., the Jacksonville structural engineering firm that has led an annual Thanksgiving turkey drive since 2020. The company matches each donated turkey with another, which last year resulted in 506 of the birds destined for holiday tables of the needy in Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties.
With federal food assistance benefits delayed or possibly not coming at all in November, this year’s turkeys will be vital for about 2,400 people.
“Every turkey that we’re able to donate feeds at least a family of four,” said Jackie Rowland, president and CEO of the company. “This turkey drive resonates with the broader community because it brings together other local businesses for a shared purpose. … It is very special to provide food to families in need.”
One of the recipients this year will be Gracie’s Kitchen in Yulee, which was founded in 2009 to feed the hungry.
“The American picture of Thanksgiving is a family sitting around the table with their turkey dinner. Our folks are living in their cars, going home to a sad trailer or eating on a picnic table outside our soup kitchen,” director Maryellen Crocker said.
The Rowland drive will be Nov. 18-20, with deliveries made the next day to 10 food banks and other nonprofits that will distribute them to families.
The rising number of donated turkeys — the first year there were 26, the next year 75, then 142, then 258, and last year’s 506 almost doubling every year — is a shining example of the power of community, Rowland said.
“It’s showing … the network we have built. They have rallied around us,” she said. “Jacksonville is the biggest small town. We’re all in it together.”
Tim Betros, CEO/founder, NexGen Roofing, from left; Adam Russell, executive vice president, Russell Rowland Inc.; and Jackie Rowland, president/CEO of Russell Rowland; take a break during a San Jose Elementary delivery for their two companies’ Thanksgiving food drives.
One of the drive’s most compelling partnerships is with NexGen Roofing. Last year, Rowland found out NexGen was donating all the Thanksgiving fixings to San Jose Elementary School families — all but the turkeys. So Rowland contributed the birds.
“That was the most rewarding,” she said. When the turkeys were delivered, “the families were literally lined up.”
Other partners include Thigpen Heating & Cooling, MCG Homes and the Northeast Florida Builders Association Charitable Foundation.
The impetus for the drive came from the childhood of Rowland’s husband, Parker Rowland, the company’s chief financial officer. Every year, his family donated a turkey to the Mandarin Food Bank.
Mary Kaminski is co-director of the food bank, which opened in 1991 and is another of the Rowland drive’s recipients.
At San Jose Elementary School in 2024, a family gets a turkey and all the Thanksgiving fixings from NexGen Roofing staffers. The company holds an annual Thanksgiving meal giveaway, with turkeys donated by the Russell Rowland Inc. turkey drive.
“So many young people who have donated of volunteered … have taken that sense of giving with them into adulthood,” she said. “When Parker Rowland played football at Mandarin High, he brought the team to the food bank to help unload a truck full of turkeys for us.
“The boys stretched from the truck to the freezer and formed a fire line to unload the turkeys. We called it the ‘turkey toss,'” she said.
This year’s Rowland donation “will make a huge difference to the food bank,” which hopes to give away at least 800 turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Kaminski said. “We hope that’s enough with our increased numbers.”
Crocker of Gracie’s Kitchen’s anticipates giving out about 600 dinners on Thanksgiving and delivering dinner boxes to about 40 “shut-in’ families, she said.
The 2024 turkey drive team of Russell Rowland Inc., a Jacksonville structural engineering firm, poses with some of the 506 turkeys they collected for needy families’ Thanksgiving tables. This year they hope to collect 600.
“All of us are overwhelmed by the generosity of our community in general and Russell Rowland company in particular this Thanksgiving,” she said. “It is so humbling for me to see kindness in our kitchen with our volunteers and appreciation in our parking lot with our guests.”
Other drive recipients are the Betty Griffin Center in St. Augustine, which serves victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse; Feeding Northeast Florida, a Jacksonville-based regional food bank; the Homeless Coalition of St. Johns County; Rethreaded in Jacksonville, which helps human trafficking survivors; Sanctuary on 8th Street, a youth afterschool program; Salvation Army of Northeast Florida, and the Shepherd’s Shelves food pantry at Shepherd of the Woods Lutheran Church in Jacksonville.
How to help or donate for Thanksgiving
Frozen turkey donations:9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 18 to 20 — Russell Rowland Jacksonville office, 12854 Kenan Drive, Suite 125, Jacksonville8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 18 to 19 — MCG Homes Fernandina Office, 1750 S. 14th St. No. 150, Fernandina Beach.
For more information, call Russell Rowland at (904) 503-3283 or go to russrow.com/turkey-drive.
Thanksgiving Food Drive for San Jose Elementary School:
Through Nov. 20 at Thigpen Heating & Cooling Inc., 2801 Dawn Road, Jacksonville.
Drop off meal components including stuffing mix, instant potatoes, canned gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, yams, pie fillings, canned vegetables, soup, broth, canned meat and other essential items.
16th annual Miracle on the Hudson Turkey Drive
Casey Jones of St. Johns County, center, one of the survivors of the “Miracle on the Hudson” plane crash, founded an annual Thanksgiving turkey drive for Salvation Army and the Mandarin Food Bank. He is shown in 2015 delivering turkeys to the Salvation Army.
Founded by Casey Jones of St. Johns County, one of the 154 passengers on the US Airways flight that crash landed in the Hudson River in 2009, this drive raises money to purchase Thanksgiving turkeys for The Salvation Army and the Mandarin Food Bank to distribute.
bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Turkey drive a ‘shared purpose’ for Jacksonville company, community