The Season For Sharing

Story and Photo BY TAWANNA JONES

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Chapter 301 spent the year collecting donations for Christmas food baskets for veterans and their families. In 1990 chapter leaders wanted to take five veteran families out for Christmas dinner. Longtime member Gilbert Ray Yeatman suggested instead that the chapter give out food baskets.

So began a Christmas event that this year distributed 250 food baskets filled with sixty pounds of canned foods, five pounds of sugar, flour, and desserts, thirty pounds of turkey or ham, and other food items. The chapter also collects monetary donations to help with the baskets.

The project began as five members meeting in the chapter president’s basement. This year more than a hundred members and volunteers worked to assemble the food boxes. Thanks to the generosity of University of Alabama football fans and the Tuscaloosa community, Chapter 301 covered the costs of its program.