Going cold turkey

By DEVIN HEILMAN

Staff Writer

COEUR d'ALENE — It was almost Thanksgiving four years ago when Jim Myers went to the food bank to volunteer during a chaotic distribution day.

"I get there, I'm all full of good will and cheer and I asked, 'What do you want me to do?'" Myers said in his kind British accent. "They wanted me to go out to the parking lot and tell people they had no turkeys. They had no turkeys. It was the week before Thanksgiving."

What happened that day moved Myers into action.

"With one exception, everybody was so charming and gracious and pleasant. They would say, 'When do you think you'll get them?' and I'd say, 'We get them through donations.' I found that heartbreaking," he said. "That was really the catalyst for me starting Turkeys for All because I'm thinking, 'I don't want that to happen again.'"

Since that time, TFA president and founder Myers and his volunteers have supplied the Coeur d'Alene Community Action Partnership food bank with Thanksgiving turkeys and trimmings to ensure those less fortunate get to enjoy a belly-filling holiday meal.

More than $30,000 and rafters of turkeys later, Turkeys for All has given its final bird. Myers will soon be moving to be with family in Florida and the nonprofit will dissolve with his departure.

"From a conceptual point of view, Turkeys for All did a good job and it raised people's antennae and put the food bank on the radar," Myers said. "The concept of Turkeys for All was to raise awareness. Not just for Thanksgiving, which was the main point, but to raise awareness of people who have less than what we have and to be in touch with that. Anybody who's been to the food bank, it's very humbling, that's my experience.

"Turkeys for All was meant to trigger the Thanksgiving mentality," he added. "We've done that pretty well."

CAP food bank manager Nicol Barnes had just received the news of the end of TFA Thursday.

"I think Jim himself and the people he recruited to help him all had a big heart for helping this community," she said. "This will definitely be a loss to the community."

TFA provided 750 turkeys and hundreds of dinner baskets to food bank clients the week before Thanksgiving 2016.

"It's helped us to provide those meals," she said of TFA. "We're a nonprofit and don't have extra staff or money. It may prove challenging in future years without Jim here. We greatly appreciate everything they've done to help us."

Barnes said TFA was probably the biggest provider of Thanksgiving turkeys and meals for the food bank and its presence will be missed, but she feels others will step up in Myers' absence.

"Our community is extremely giving," she said. "If we put the word out that we don't have Turkeys for All any longer and that we definitely have a need to purchase the turkeys, I have no doubt that our community will pull together to make it happen."

Myers was in the process of completing the final paperwork when he met with Barnes to give her a check for the last $3,700 TFA funds for the 2017 Thanksgiving holiday. Myers, who also served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteer, said he's proud of the TFA legacy and the work he has done here.

"My goal was to fill the gap between what the food bank gets here and there and the general day-to-day donations," he said. "That's exactly what we did that first Thanksgiving, that's exactly what we did this last Thanksgiving.

"This is a unique place and the people here make it," Myers continued. "But it's time to move on."