Downtown Rotary delivers Thanksgiving in a box

Every year around Thanksgiving, the Downtown Rotary Club of Macon supplies and packs 100 boxes of groceries for families in need. 

The group has kept up the generous tradition for the past 19 years, and members are now pushing to make the 20th anniversary even more special. 

Horace Holmes Jr., who has served as the club’s president since July, said he was challenged to increase the number of served families to 250.

He said the club’s Feed 100+ initiative is an opportunity for “anyone with a heart” to help out people in need.

“Especially around those special days — Thanksgiving and Christmas — for people to be without (food), that can really weigh heavily on you,” he said.

About 100 volunteers from local churches, fraternities and sororities shop for turkeys and other items before packing it all up and delivering the needed gifts to members of the community

The first time Holmes delivered a box of Thanksgiving supplies, he was greeted by a grandmother taking care of eight children while their mother was incarcerated. She told him she didn’t know how she was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner before he came along.

Another Rotarian delivered a box of groceries to a house without a door on it. The next week, somebody else came along and installed a door.

“Those kind of stories — over the 20-year period that we’ve been doing this — have really touched a lot of hearts,” he said. “Our kids have grown up delivering these boxes. They get a chance to see what it’s like to serve people.”

Holmes, who also serves on the board of directors at the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank, said most of the club’s served families live in difficult circumstances and are surprised when the club gifts them the boxes.

He said the club is partnering with Bibb County’s public schools to identify families in need. He said the club partners with Walmart on supplies.