Huntington Beach women take aim at food insecurity with Thanksgiving Heroes
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Huntington Beach friends Tiffany Abrishami and Karen Francis went to a nonprofit retreat in Utah earlier this year.
They came back stuffed with inspiration, sort of like the bellies of those who overindulge on Thanksgiving dinner.
At the retreat, they met Rob Adams, who founded the Thanksgiving Heroes nonprofit in the Salt Lake City area in 2015 after a childhood experience of poverty inspired him to pay it forward. The idea behind Thanksgiving Heroes is fighting insecurity by delivering complete meal kits right to the doorstep of families in need.
“I’m like, ‘I have to do something,’” said Abrishami, 35. “I’ve always had the heart of giving … and at one point in my life I wanted to open up a nonprofit or have one of my own. I just never knew when, and so when this opportunity came about, I’m like, ‘I have to take this.’”
Abrishami and Francis founded the Orange County branch of Thanksgiving Heroes in April. They’re now running the turkey trot of preparing for their big event, and they’re looking for help.
Thanksgiving Heroes Orange County is holding a packing and delivery event on Nov. 20-21 at the loading dock at Bella Terra mall, with the goal of assembling boxes of food for 500 families.
The nonprofit is looking for box packers and people who can help with cleanup, but Francis said the biggest need is drivers who will be able to pick up three to four completed Thanksgiving meal kits, be given a route and deliver them on Saturday, Nov. 21. There are four time slots for delivery, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Until Monday, Thanksgiving Heroes is also accepting nominations for the 500 families who will receive the kits.
“You can do it on the website directly if you know a family in need,” Abrishami said. “You can nominate yourself if you want.”
The goal has been raising $50,000 this year. Earlier this week, Abrishami said the nonprofit was approaching that goal, with about $41,000 raised.
Those who are unable to donate their time or their money can still help raise funds for the organization year-round by hosting a “turkey drive.”
The meal kits, designed for a family of five, feature frozen turkeys, pies, carrots, potatoes and more, with plenty of fixings. Abrishami said Thanksgiving Heroes partnered with Smart & Final to get nonprofit pricing on the ingredients, and others have also helped — Albertsons provided a $5,000 grant as a corporate sponsor.
The need remains immense. About one in six children in Orange County face food insecurity, according to Feeding America, and one in eight people overall. That’s nearly 400,000 people across the county.
“Food insecurity doesn’t look like homelessness,” said Francis, 43. “It looks like me and you, people who have nice clothes and a nice car, yet they have no way to put groceries in their refrigerator, you know. And, you know, we’ve all come on hard times, right? We’re like, how are we going to get through this next paycheck?”
The concept of Thanksgiving Heroes, where drivers can personally connect with the families receiving the boxes, particularly resonated with her. Francis said she was raised on the East Coast, lived in multiple states and didn’t know many people when she moved to California.
“I’ve spent the majority of the last 10 years of my Thanksgivings alone,” Francis said. “I have one best friend who invited me a handful of times, and even then I was like, I don’t want to go. I just felt weird. Like, I don’t want to impose on people’s family time. And then there’s this thing called ‘Friendsgiving,’ right? And then it’s like, do you invite yourself to Thanksgiving if you’re not invited? … I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.”
Abrishami and Francis are proud to be fostering a sense of community. The Thanksgiving Heroes Orange County board of directors also includes vice president Letty Love, who lives in Irvine, and legal counsel Brian Ford, a Huntington Beach resident.
“We accept all denominations,” Francis said. “We accept all colors of people, all genders, because hunger has has no discrimination, right? It reaches everyone. So we want to build community. We want to build awareness around giving, around where our economy is, where people can then also be a part of what we’re doing.”
Francis added getting a nonprofit off the ground has been challenging. The women have been busy promoting the cause on the Thanksgiving Heroes social media, and she said they have been working with other food nonprofits like The Tree of New America and Hands of Mercy.
They were fortunate that she teaches yoga at Bella Terra, which led to a connection for the big event next weekend.
The push toward that big event has been frantic, yet rewarding for the two women.
“We can go and volunteer, and we will go and volunteer, and we have,” Francis said. “However, there’s nobody like Tiffany Abrishami.”
Abrishami quickly jumped in.
“And same with Karen,” she said. “You know, within our friendship, it’s like there is magic, there’s synergy. There’s something here that, when we go out and we go do something, we’re like, ‘Oh my God, all this stuff is happening for us.’ And it’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty amazing what we’re able to do, that we get to do this.”
