A friendly competition between local Republicans and Democrats had only one winner: the community.
Diane Ortiz-Parsons is a local Republican and volunteer for Chandler Christian Community Center. The week of Thanksgiving she saw the center had a desperate need for some turkeys. She called up those she knew in the Republican party, they challenged the Democrats to see who could bring in the most turkeys and the competition began.
In the end organizers lost track of how many turkeys were donated by each parties. Ortiz-Parsons said she saw Republicans come all the way from Scottsdale to drop off turkeys, but that she also saw Democrats proudly come in moments after they’d received the email to drop off their donation. Some households are split on party, but were still eager to help.
“It was great to see the community come together and network for something that had all the potential of not being a thankful day for so many people in the area,” Ortiz-Parsons said. “We also received about $2,000 in donations. We had so many donations coming that it actually shut down the computer system for a while. It backed it up. We had all the people from all over the place giving donations at the same time. It was great.”
By the end of the day Wednesday the group had more than enough turkeys. Those that are left will be frozen and saved for Christmas.
