Highland Football Gives Back To Families In Need

For 19 years, Crossroads Urban Center has been running a program that feeds families around the downtown Salt Lake City valley for the holidays. They give out free meals for people to prepare for their Thanksgiving dinners, who could not otherwise afford a holiday meal. Ran by only four co-owners, the help of volunteers is what has kept the program up and running throughout the many years.

While volunteers are always needed, hungry families are never on short supply. Two rows of tables were set up for the people arriving to get food. They would walk in, about five or six at a time, where they were then directed to one of the many tables, where they would then show their ID to a volunteer. From there, they were directed to a long table completely covered in turkeys. Another table followed, this one with boxes of mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy mixes.

After receiving their food, the gratitude of the people was miracu­lous; the smiles on their faces when they got to pick out their own turkey from a variety of shapes and sizes.

Crossroads Urban Center is a local non-profit organization that helps people in need. They give a food supply of three days, enough to feed an entire household, six times a year. The program also advocates and fights for issues like low income housing and for the reduction and removal of sales taxes on food.

The Highland Football Team, run by Brody Benson, has given their time for the past three years to go to this event and to help give out food to the people who need it. With the help of the team, work definitely gets done. This annual “Turkey Toss,” as the boys call it, is a chance for them not only to bond with their teammates, but to bond over doing something helpful like volunteering for their community.

“It really brings the whole team together,” junior Bryan Geertgens said. “I really love giving back to the community and especially seeing all the smiles on people’s faces when I hand them a turkey.”

Getting the turkeys into the building is where most of the toughest work is done. It may seem like simple work, but lining up and tossing 20 pound, frozen, slippery turkeys as fast as you can, is a very taxing job. Benson started by handing someone a turkey from the inside of a semi-trailer. An assembly line formed by the boys, up a flight of stairs, is how the turkeys were transported into the room of people. Each player was assigned a post; either handing out food, managing the parking lot, arranging bags of food, opening and breaking down boxes, or being a part of the turkey toss line.

“This is our 19th year and the program has been running better than ever before,” Director of Crossroads Urban Center Katherine Stack said. “We encourage people to volunteer at these events as often as they can, and to enjoy giving back to their community.”

Stack relies heavily on the football team, as she made very clear that their help is very genuine and much needed every year.

“The boy’s enthusiasm towards the event is so positive,” Stack said. “They seem to enjoy it, and I know we have loved having them the past three years.”

Because of the help and enthusiasm towards the day’s event, 3,000- plus families received a Thanksgiving dinner to feed everyone in their entire family.