Gary Patterson Foundation provides 40,000 Thanksgiving meals to DFW’s ‘hidden hungry’
TCU coach Gary Patterson is making sure DFW’s “hidden hungry” is getting fed over Thanksgiving.
The Gary Patterson Foundation purchased 6,500 turkeys that will provide 40,000 meals to families in need. Food packages were assembled last week and distributed over the weekend.
Patterson’s wife Kelsey served as a point person for the event, as the foundation collaborated with The Hill Community Development, Inc. and Dallas Baptist Ministers Union to help identify the “hidden hungry” throughout the Metroplex.
“Gary and I are thankful that people support us and support the foundation,” Kelsey said. “Seeing 150 volunteers assemble 40,000 meals and 6,500 turkeys, especially when the holidays are so busy for everyone, was pretty incredible.”
For Kelsey, though, it’s also an eye-opening realization of the hunger issues prevalent in the community.
“We have 40,000 people here in North Texas that are hungry,” Kelsey said. “We’ve got to look back and see what else we can do better, not just on the holidays but all year long.”
The endeavor wouldn’t have been possible, Kelsey said, without the help of New Mount Zion Baptist Church pastor Tommy L. Brown, MW Logistics CEO Mitchell Ward and minister Darrell Porter.
The infrastructure was in place where the foundation could use its resources to purchase the food and more than quadruple the number of turkeys provided to needy families.
“They already had this great meal distribution in place,” Kelsey said. “We were tossing around the idea of being able to fund more and you can’t do it without this type of infrastructure. They had a great plan and we really expanded their capacity.”
It became another signature moment for Patterson’s foundation. This is an organization that has granted 100 percent of Fort Worth ISD elementary school libraries with funds in the last two years. That’s 83 elementary schools in the area.
Doing things of this nature and giving back is something that is important to the Pattersons.
“I think it’s a missed opportunity if you don’t,” Kelsey said. “You have this wonderful platform to promote and to push good in the world, so it’s a missed opportunity if you don’t use it.”
