A couple of years ago while volunteering at the annual We Give Thanks dinner for the needy at Honda Center, Anaheim Family YMCA CEO Brent Finlay said he was struck by a request from a girl waiting in line for food.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was on the mashed potato serving line and this little girl comes up to me \u2014 maybe 6 or 7 years old \u2014 with a white T-shirt, dirty shoes on backwards with no laces and I give her a scoop,\u201d Finlay said. \u201cShe said, `Hey, sir, can I have more? I haven\u2019t eaten in a while.\u2019 I had tears streaming down my face.\u201d<\/p>\n
And when the annual Thanksgiving feast had to be canceled last year after a nearly four-decade tradition, Finlay said in January he got the idea to keep it going with the YMCA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my inspiration,\u201d Finlay said of the Oliver Twist moment. \u201cWhen the event went down and was going away I took it as a bit of a personal mission to bring it back. And through the Y and my own personal fortitude we\u2019re going to make this happen and bring it back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finlay said the event, which was run by restaurateur Frank Garcia for 37 years, had run into financial issues, with major sponsors dropping out.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, without that funding, there was no way a group of organizers could carry it forward,\u201d Finlay said.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s event will be held nearby \u2014 at the Grove of Anaheim \u2014 and will be a pickup event for needy families in the area, Finlay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been a volunteer myself\u201d at the annual We Give Thanks Thanksgiving dinner, he said. \u201cMy wife and I \u2014 when we heard it was not going to happen last year \u2014 it was kind of a depressing moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in January, \u201cI made a decision. I pitched the idea of bringing it back under the auspices of the YMCA and my board said go make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, families will drive through the Grove parking lot to pick up about 3,500 grab-and-go meals with a Disney toy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to serve about 700 families,\u201d Finlay said.<\/p>\n
The YMCA has a list of families it has assisted in the past, and they were alerted to the event, Finlay said.<\/p>\n
Because the YMCA provides afterschool snacks and meals, the organization already has an industrial food provider and the experience to keep the event going, Finlay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey get the meal cold and can reheat it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Garcia was \u201cecstatic the Y was taking it on,\u201d Finlay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said if there was one organization that could do it and have the best interests of the families it was the YMCA. We were thrilled to have him share those words with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The YMCA is teaming up with the Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Angels, city of Anaheim, Disney, CalOptima, Kaiser, and United Way to make the event happen, Finlay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have 127 volunteers who are going to be there,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we say, if it\u2019s meant to happen, the Y can do it. This is what we do all over America. We provide hope and try to change the lives as many as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple of years ago while volunteering at the annual We Give Thanks dinner for the needy at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,42053,7766,1043,42054,15398],"class_list":["post-72238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-annual","tag-dinner","tag-event","tag-returns","tag-thanksgiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}