With the holiday season upon us, families across the country are looking forward to large family gatherings and dinners featuring, of course, a great big turkey in the center of the table.

This year, more than 6,500 needy residents in the distressed Appalachian regions of West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia will benefit from cash grants to our partners to provide turkey meals to individuals and frozen turkeys to families in need.

For many of these families, such as McDowell County, West Virginia, the choice is to splurge on a holiday dinner, or not blow their grocery budget for the week.

Thanks to the supporters of Americans Helping Americans® each year at this time we are able to provide grant funding to our partners such as Big Creek People in Action (BCPIA) which hosts holiday parties for community members and distributes turkeys and meal boxes for holiday dinners.

“Many of these families wouldn’t spend the extra money to buy a turkey because of all their other expenses at Christmas,” says BCPIA co-executive director Dyanne Spriggs. “It is a comforting feeling to know that we are able to help them have a good Christmas and lasting memories.”