HOW IT ALL BEGAN

It all began in October 1999.  My brother Jeremiah age 15, and I age 11, were taking 70 quilts he had made (with help) from his Eagle project to Utah. We were giving them to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Humanitarian Aid Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.  A lady walked past us as we were sitting in the lobby of the Directors office and saw our quilts with the labels on them that said “This quilt was made for you by many helpful hands”, she then asked, “do you have any extra quilts for me to take to Turkey in a couple weeks, to the mother’s and babies in the tent cities, where they are living after the terrible Earthquakes?”, my brother said “I have twenty five extra”.

When he gave the quilts to the woman, my mom was talking to her and she told my mom that the little kids in Turkey in the tent cities needed toys, something that they could put in their pockets, because there was no room in the tents to keep anything larger.  I was sort of listening to the lady talking to my mom and I said “Lego’s would be perfect”.  And the lady ignored me. So I went home and made some phone calls to the Lego Corporation and asked if they could help send some toys to Turkey, they said NO.

Then I asked the McDonald’s Restaurant by my house if they would let me buy just the Lego toys and not the meals (they had a promotion going in their Happy Meals where you got a set of Lego toys with your meal).  The Franchise Owner said NO! He felt what I wanted to do was politically wrong. I was really frustrated and thought if I had to I would just buy the meals and give the food to the local school kids, and take the toys for the kids in Turkey. 

I went home to my large Lego box and made as many little cars, boats, and planes as I could from my own Lego toys.

Then my mom and I talked to the manager at the Mc Donald’s in Wal Mart when we were there buying a hamburger, he was very, very kind.  He let us buy Lego’s at his McDonald’s without having to buy the food.  The manager wanted to help. He sold us just the toy sets for one dollar each, and also offered us a deal that, for each two cases we bought he would donate one case.  We got three cases I raised some of the money. My brother and two sisters gave me some money from their Christmas savings accounts for the Lego sets that were at McDonalds in the happy meals at the Wal Mart restaurant. 

We called the lady in Utah and told her we got the toys, she told us to take them to the airport and air freight them to her because the next day she was going to Turkey, and she would hand deliver the toys with my brothers quilts.  I was so sad that I could not go with her and see the kids getting the toys.  She sent me an

e-mail and told me about what happened when she gave the toys and quilts.  I got some pictures later.  It was such a good feeling to help.  I kept collecting more money and was able to give more Lego sets to the Humanitarian Center in Salt Lake City.  The total number of sets I was able to get together and send was 1,000. 

The next year I was nominated and awarded a special recognition it was The Millennium Dreamer Award, given by Disney and McDonalds companies. 

 I got that for what I did for the kids in Turkey.  I was sent together with 1,999 other Millennium Dreamers from around the world, to Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida.  We all celebrated three days of fun together as kids who want to make a difference in the world. While we were there Christopher Reeves talked to us, he encouraged us to keep doing good things for the rest of our lives.  He told us we were the super heroes to him.  Just before I went to Florida I heard about two other Millennium Dreamers, a brother and sister who started “Turkeys R Us” Dan and Betsy Nalley, they were on the Oprah show the day before we left for Florida. I saw them in Florida. 

In November 2000 when I was reading in our newspaper about the local food pantry needing turkeys for Thanksgiving baskets and “Praying for Turkeys”, I thought of the Nalley’s and what they had done.  And because I like to help I started helping in California like they were helping in Boston, Massachusetts.  I have helped the local food pantries since then. 

I helped the Nally kids in Boston for a year as their West coast representative, that was hard to work under them because it was hard for people to understand that the turkeys would stay here and not go to Boston.

I made the decision to start my own non-profit organization THANKSGIVING FOR ALL. My lawyer says, this association is a nonprofit public benefit association and is not organized for the private gain of any person.  It is organized under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law for public purposes.  THANKSGIVING FOR ALL is organized specifically to raise funds and find product sources to provide turkeys and other food stuffs to small community food pantries, homeless shelters, and other charitable organizations so that all less fortunate people can enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. The specific purpose of this corporation is to facilitate the donation of Turkeys and other foodstuffs to community pantries, homeless shelters and other charitable organizations for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

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