Lakeland Pantry provides 85 Thanksgiving meals to families in need

This Thanksgiving 85 families — or 399 individuals — were able to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal with all of the fixings with the help of the Lakeland Pantry and area stores.
On Thursday, Nov. 21, Volunteers from Amazon, MHLT (Minocqua-Hazelhurst-Lake Tomahawk) Honor Society, The Ojibwe Market, Trig’s, and the Lakeland Pantry packed Thanksgiving dinners for families that suffer from food insecurity in the Lakeland School District. The families that received the meals were from the Arbor Vitae Woodruff (AVW), Lac du Flambeau, Minocqua-Hazelhurst-Lake Tomahawk (MHLT), North Lakeland Elementary Schools and Lakeland Union High School.
Each family received a turkey along with other fixings for a complete Thanksgiving Day meal. The turkeys were donated by Amazon (who purchased the turkeys from TJ’s Meat Market in Minocqua), the Ojibwe Market in Lac du Flambeau, Save More, and Trig’s. The packing bags were provided by Trig’s and Walmart of Minocqua.
Park City Credit Union of Minocqua also provided the pantry with an $800 donation to help with the cost of the meal.
“This cause is really near and dear to our hearts. We work in the food industry, and we live in these communities. We just want to do whatever we can to help people and kind of ease some of that need where we can,” said Kindl Furtek, director of marketing and communication for the T.A. Solberg Company.

Jeff Williams, the Operation Manager at the Ojibwe Market added, “Everybody should be looking out for each other, no matter where you’re from. We should be trying to help each other. In this day and age, there’s not a lot of that out there, and I think it’s a good thing to help people.”
If interested in making a donation, visit www.lakelandpantry.com/donate. For every one dollar donated approximately seven dollars of food can be purchased.
Food insecurity for children and adults in the North Woods is ongoing. This effort provides much-needed food for the families impacted during the Thanksgiving holiday.
For more information about the Lakeland Pantry, go to www.lakelandpantry.com or email lakelandpantry@hyfinc.org.