Talking Turkey: Drive Stays in the Background to Help Needy Families
For the eighth consecutive year, the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) is helping needy families in Pittsburgh obtain turkeys for their holiday meals.
The OMA Turkey Drive assists disadvantaged families with children, and to qualify, the family income must be at or below the federal poverty line. The drive’s $30 suggested donation is enough to sponsor a family but monetary gifts of any amount are welcome.
According to Dr. Rahmon Hart, who has been OMA director since the turkey drive began, donations can be made throughout the holiday season, and any money received after Nov. 21 will be used to provide turkeys and other foods for families at Christmastime.
Nov. 21 is the day that Hart, with the assistance of a friend who donates time and a truck, will be distributing approximately 100 turkeys to churches, community groups and food pantries in Hazelwood, the North Side and Pittsburgh’s east end neighborhoods. Those groups know the community and identify the families who receive the turkeys, Hart explained.
In every case, Hart explained, the community groups and Duquesne have already worked together for a common goal. In some instances the organizations are where Duquesne students have served as interns or volunteered as tutors, or they are churches where students he knows through OMA attend church.
Remaining in the background, he pointed out, may amount to more than decorum; it may be part of the program’s success. “People have a lot of pride, and some people aren’t comfortable receiving donations from people they don’t know. The last thing I want to do is add more stress to their lives,” he said, adding that maintaining anonymity while performing good works is the ideal and example that the Spiritans have set for us.
Hart has been organizing similar drives for the past 15 years, seven years longer than he has been at Duquesne, having done so at the universities—Slippery Rock, Illinois State, Case Western and Carnegie Mellon—where he previously worked.
Each of the drives kicked off with Hart calling on the manager of a supermarket’s meat department, and if their organization is willing to participate, he obtains a guarantee of purchasing 12 to 15 pound turkeys for cost with donated funds. Recently, however, he has noticed that donations have tapered off, despite the rising numbers of people living in poverty.
Unemployment and underemployment, he observed, have added so many new categories of people to the ranks of the poor that you can’t make assumptions about who is and who is not impoverished, which he believes was less so a decade ago. “You can interact with someone now and not know that person is poor,” he said. “The face of poverty has changed.”
Donations can be made at the Office of Multicultural Affairs in Room 106 of the Union. Call 412.396.1117 for more information.