AUSTIN, Tx (Nov 19, 2024) – After 24 years of service, Operation Turkey is back for year 25, with a goal of delivering 75,000 Thanksgiving meals to those in need in Texas, North Carolina, and the Tri-State Area.
This year, Operation Turkey will see 50,000 unpaid volunteers come together to donate, cook, pack, and deliver these 75,000 meals. For the fifth year running, the organization will use last mile optimization software from Route4Me to ensure the meals get to their destinations in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
A Simple Act of Kindness Sparks A Community Mission
The seed for Operation Turkey was planted in 2000 when founder Richard Bagdonas gave a single meal to a homeless gentleman on 6th Street in Austin. The following year, Bagdonas doubled his efforts, giving out two Thanksgiving meals. The snowball effect took hold, surpassing 10,000 meals in 2013 and reaching 62,500 meals by 2019.
The turkey-cooking operation in Austin is a sight to behold, says Greg Keilin, a volunteer responsible for planning delivery routes for the organization. “People bring their giant rotisseries, and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, they just cook hundreds of turkeys in parking lots,” Keilin says.
On Thanksgiving morning, several local restaurants open their kitchens to Operation Turkey to cook the rest of the meal, including donated cans of corn, mashed potatoes, and pies.
Volunteers then run an assembly line to pack the food into delivery containers decorated with pictures of turkeys and Thanksgiving messages drawn with donated crayons by those too young to assist in the cooking.
In 2023, Operation Turkey in Austin prepared and packed 9,884 meals in just 90 minutes.
Large-Scale Delivery Requires Thousands of Routes
With the meals packed and ready for delivery, hundreds of volunteer drivers arrive. The volunteers load each vehicle with meal boxes and provide the driver with a printed route sheet for their deliveries. Austin’s 9,884 meals were distributed across 1,151 routes in 2023.
The line of drivers flows smoothly as volunteers load each car and provide the driver’s route. By midday on Thanksgiving, every meal is on its way.
Prior to 2019, all route planning for these routes was done by hand. “Every year, a sweet, sweet woman named Susan Pascoe would sit for weeks before Thanksgiving and plan all the routes manually,” says Brian Tolbert, Executive Director and Chairman of the organization.
In 2018, the last year Susan planned routes by hand, Operation Turkey delivered a staggering 60,000 meals throughout New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, and North Carolina.
In 2019, however, Keilin discovered Route4Me.
Powerful Routing Solutions Simplify Operations, Expand Reach
Keilin hadn’t previously used last mile optimization software, but he recognized that Uber and FedEx used powerful tools to plan all their routes. After some internet research and phone calls, Greg landed on Route4Me.
Now the route planning that took several weeks prior to 2019 takes a single day. “Folks submit a request for a meal at operationturkey.com. Those addresses go into a database. The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I enter the addresses into the software, generate the routes, and send PDFs electronically to each site,” Keilin explains.
Route4Me also allows Keilin to set a maximum capacity, limiting the number of meals per vehicle. The software analyzes the addresses and creates the most efficient routes for the volunteer drivers.
Operation Turkey Aims To Break New Ground In Meal Delivery
This year, Operation Turkey aims to deliver the highest number of meals yet, breaking the record of 62,500. Tolbert credits the last mile optimization software with helping the organization expand its impact.
“There’s no doubt that Route4Me has increased the number of people we’re able to reach,” Tolbert says.
Route4Me looks forward to a long relationship with Operation Turkey, working to feed those in need during the Thanksgiving Holiday.