Gobble Gobble

Originally I sat down and began writing this post on Monday morning...and am just now getting to posting it on Wednesday-FAIL!
In the midst of writing this Mr. Three came down with an allergic reaction to something he ate and landed him in the ER for 7 hours all while I was still determined to potty train our 2 year old which I began this weekend.
Needless to say the week has gotten away with me whilst being filled with turkeys, allergic reactions, basketball try-outs, and potty training :)
Oh and two Harvest parties at school today!
Gobble Gobble!

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Have you all heard that Thanksgiving is around the corner?

Something about turkey's, family, and being thankful for what we have?

I think it's this Thursday :)

Okay, the jig's up...joke time is ova!!

So if you read this post you know that last week I set out to raise money and turkey's for our local salvation army.

I found out about this need on Wednesday so I didn't have much time to get things moving, I had to get started quickly!

Let me tell you what- if I didn't know the impact social media had on people I certainly do know now!

Donations started to come in on Wednesday and just stopped late last night :)

On Saturday my husband -who hadn't asked any questions about my wanting to do this so far-asked me where we were planning on putting all of these turkey's we were going to buy.

At first we had enough money for around 20-25 turkeys from Shoprite.

I just shrugged my shoulders and said to him, "I have no idea.  God has told me that we are supposed to do this so I'm going to trust in his plan and let him open the doors for me."

Hubby has gotten used to this crazy new me so he just shrugged his shoulders and went about his business.  

At church on Sunday I made an announcement after service and that allowed us to receive more monetary donations from people last minute.

Then on Sunday a local restaurant, W.L. Goodfellows, contacted me via Facebook me telling me they had 4 turkeys for me to come pick up.

My first thought was woohoo, 4 more turkeys!!

I then texted my husband telling him how crazy it was that a local restaurant knew what we were doing and wanted to help...wow!

That's when I knew He had a greater plan for this than I could ever have imagined :)

When I got there I spoke to one of the owners named Jim.

During our conversation he mentioned that they purchased their turkey's at our local Costco because the price was amazing.

As soon as he said that the gears in my mind started turning.

I wanted to get the most bang for my buck...or turkey- same thing!

As soon as I came home I began counting all of the cash we had collected from last week through yesterday and it was waaaay more than I thought!

That combined with what out of town family, friends, and strangers donated via PayPal brought us to $575!!!

I immediately called Costco to see if they would be willing to waive the member fee, because we're not members, in order to help us help the Salvation Army.

I hit a road block- WHAM!

As much as they wanted to help they were only willing to give me 15 turkey's because they had to save some for their club members.

I was determined to get the best deal on turkey's and was not going to let this stop me.

Next call? BJ's.

We're members at BJ's and when I called to ask if they would be willing to help us out they told us that there was a limit of 5 turkey's per family...even though we were trying to help out the Salvation Army.

Road block #2-WHAM but I was determined to see this thing through!

Remember the restaurant that donated 4 turkeys and told me about the great deal on turkey's at Costco, W.L. Goodfellows?

In the midst of all my road blocks the owners contacted me saying they would love to let me use their membership at Costco to purchase turkeys!!

I turned to my husband and said, "Another door was just opened.  The restaurant wants to let us use their membership to buy all the turkeys!"

Within 15 minutes I was on my way to Costco with the restaurant owner.

The owner who had never met me, didn't know why I was going all of this, and was willing to drive 30 minutes each way  to help us feed hungry people!

AMAZING :)

When we got there we each grabbed a cart and literally filled the entire thing with turkey's!!

Let me tell you how hard it was to steer a cart filled with 30 some frozen turkey's, but man was it worth it!

As we made our way through the crowded store people stopped to tell us what a good thing we were doing, smiled at us from afar, we even got a few thumbs up too!

Man it felt GREAT to be able to do this!

I came home with 45 turkey's from Costco!!!!

But it didn't stop there...oh no it did. not!

Later that night I left my house 3 times to pick up various items and each time there was somebody outside with a turkey!

We filled up two refrigerators and freezers with turkeys and because the weather was so cold we left the rest in my trunk covered in ice!

We were able to raise $845 and had 9 turkeys dropped off.
This event was so much bigger than I could have ever imagined, and for that I am grateful!

All together we dropped off 61 turkeys to the Salvation Army, plus a last minute cash donation of $150!!!

I spoke with Captain Stevenson at the Salvation Army and they were able to fulfill their need to feed 498 families which will include 837 adults, and 654 children.
How amazing!!!

Do you know how many lives have been touched this Thanksgiving?
All of this was possible because people chose to come together for the greater good.

That's 1,491 smiles we were able to help put on people's faces this Thanksgiving!
That's 61 more families that were able to give their families a Thanksgiving that they prayed for.
My heart was changed in ways I never knew possible this weekend, and definitely for the better.
My faith grew larger than I knew it could this weekend.
My relationship with the Lord became stronger.
My ability to pray was really stretched beyond what I knew, to a place where I want to be always.
I will be forever humbled and truth be told helping these people did more good for me than they will ever know.
The Salvation Army now holds a special piece of my heart.
Things we take so easily for granted are really hard for some families these days.
So do me a favor treat each day as a gift, give when you can, and always keep those who are less fortunate in your prayers.
Sometimes others just need a little help, wouldn't it be great if you were the one to help them?