3TV Thanksgiving Food
Drive Events Collect Record Donations
Comes at a vital time
as food banks see 100% increase in need
PHOENIX – In the days leading up to the
Thanksgiving holiday, 3TV teamed up with The Salvation Army, Fry’s Food Stores,
the Professional Firefighters of Arizona and St. Mary’s Food Bank to collect
turkeys, non-perishable food items and monetary donations to help feed Arizona
families in need as part of our Big Guy Turkey Drive and One Day Big Give event.
“For more than 55 years, 3TV has been
committed to serving our community,” said Blanca Esparza-Pap, Community
Relations Manager for KTVK-3TV. “In light of the challenging economic times,
these commitments become more crucial as our non-profit partners see significant
increases in the demand for their services.”
The 16th Annual Big Guy
Turkey Day, featuring 3TV’s resident Big Guy, Brad Cesmat, and other members of
the 3TV family, collected 1,935 turkeys and $43,161 for The Salvation Army. The
one-day drive, traditionally held the Thursday before Thanksgiving, collected
enough food and money to cover The Salvation Army’s Thanksgiving needs
statewide. Over the years, the Big Guy Turkey Drive has raised more than $1
million for The Salvation Army.
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 3TV
broadcast live for twelve hours in front of a Fry’s Food Store in Phoenix
encouraging people to come down and donate to the Arizona’s Family Holiday Food
Drive during our One Day Big Give event. Volunteers from St. Mary’s Food Bank
took donations throughout the day and cheered on people as they donated frozen
turkeys and the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. In total, enough
food and money was collected in twelve hours to provide 29,000 meals at St.
Mary’s Food Bank, a 500% increase in donations from 2008.
"Our projections for a 50 percent
increase in need for Thanksgiving turned out to be no where near the numbers of
people we saw streaming into the Food Bank before Thanksgiving," St. Mary's Food
Bank President and CEO Terry Shannon said. “Incredibly, we saw a 100
percent-plus increase over last year’s record totals, which make the need for
donations in this holiday season absolutely critical. We could not do it without
support from 3TV, Fry’s, the firefighters and the public during the ‘One Day Big
Give’ event,” said Shannon. “Thanks to efforts like this, the Food Bank was able
to feed about 2,000 people an hour in the early days of the holiday
season.”
About KTVK
KTVK-3TV and its Phoenix sister
station, KASW-CW6 are part of Belo Corp. KTVK produces 48 hours of local news
per week, more local news than most broadcast television stations in the U.S.
KTVK’s website,azfamily.com is the number one television station website in
Arizona. One of the first 40 television stations to convert to high definition,
KTVK leads the way in innovation, community involvement and local news and
weather coverage delivered by the most popular on-air talent in the market. Its
audience credits KTVK as being the community-minded station that most
reflects the spirit of Arizona and its people.
For more information about KTVK,
contact: Blanca Esparza, Community Relations Manager, 602-207-3331, besparza@azfamily.com