{"id":60078,"date":"2025-11-25T12:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T12:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/60078\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T12:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T12:19:11","slug":"anonymous-donor-provides-thousands-of-turkeys-ahead-of-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/60078\/","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous donor provides thousands of turkeys ahead of Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 An anonymous donor provided The Salvation Army with nearly 13,000 turkeys for families ahead of Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

The Salvation Army St. Petersburg allowed people to pick up a free turkey on Monday, Nov. 24, from 3 pm. to 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Anonymous donor provides thousands of families with turkeys ahead of Thanksgiving<\/p>\n

Anonymous donor provides thousands of turkeys ahead of Thanksgiving<\/p>\n

It’s part of the annual Turkey Toss Giveaway. <\/p>\n

Gary Sturdivant, The Salvation Army Area Commander for South Pinellas County, explained how the program got started.<\/p>\n

“Some 20 years ago, a little lady had 5 to 6 turkeys in her car in the trunk. She stopped by The Salvation Army in Clearwater and said it’s my birthday. I got to get home to have Thanksgiving with my family. Can you all use these turkeys? The Salvation Army said we sure can,” said Sturdivant. <\/p>\n

This year, the anonymous donor donated nearly 13,000 turkeys to be distributed across Salvation Army locations. <\/p>\n

“It’s a blessing in disguise, all the sides, everything that you have to tally up is expensive when you have to pay out of pocket for everything with how expensive food is,” said Avetta Jones.<\/p>\n

More than 700 people received a free turkey at the St. Petersburg location.<\/p>\n

“It just means, you know, me and my family can have a nice meal together and just enjoy each other’s company,” said Deasia Waters. <\/p>\n

Sturdivant said The Salvation Army sees people in need every day of the year.<\/p>\n

“You have to make a choice to pay your light bill or do you put food on the table,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Salvation Army also provides people with a free meal on Thanksgiving. <\/p>\n

Sturdivant said anyone is welcome to attend on Thanksgiving Day at 340 14th Avenue South in St. Petersburg. <\/p>\n

Share Your Story with Julie

From the courtroom to your commute, Julie Salomone works to share the issues that matter to you. She also focuses on the day-to-day issues in Sarasota County, so be sure to reach out to Julie to start a conversation.
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<\/p>\n

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Richard Marquette lost 20 beehives in July when someone mistakenly cleared his property, taking away his primary source of income from honey sales.<\/p>\n

Missing beehives returned to 84-year-old Florida beekeeper after story goes viral<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 An anonymous donor provided The Salvation Army with nearly 13,000 turkeys for families ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[205,7083,7084,7085,7086,7087,276,7088,1338,596,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-60078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-abc-action-news","tag-citrus-county","tag-desoto-county","tag-hardee-county","tag-hernando-county","tag-highlands-county","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-manatee-county","tag-pasco-county","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}