Allan Appel Photo
Figure 1,565 turkeys weighing on average 12 to 14 pounds at $1.60 a pound — and you’ve already spent about $20,000.
That’s why, for the sixth straight year, Al Barbarotta, president and CEO of AFB Management, the company that oversees Board of Education buildings and facilities, including the central kitchen, raised about $45,000. He raised the money to provide a complete holiday meal to the many New Haven Public School families who need one for Thanksgiving, the Friday that follows and the weekend.
The 21 boxes of stuffing each contained 18 bags of product, destined for around 400 family meal packages.
Many New Haven school kids rely on the school for the most nutritious meals of their day. The full holiday meal fills a potentially serious food gap, said schools Chief Operating Officer Will Clark.
On Monday afternoon at the school system’s central kitchen on Barnes Avenue, Clark, his daughter Georgiana, Barbarotta, a half dozen of his family members — it’s become a tradition for them — and two dozen other Board of Ed staffers, Local 287 drivers, school custodians, and volunteers from all over the city did serious, highly organized preparing.
They moved large pallets of cranberries and beans, stuffing stuffing and packing cans of the well-known fixin’s into pickle boxes (no pickles inside the boxes contributed by Valley Container of Bridgeport) for those 1,565 families in preparation for a Tuesday drop-off.
The 1,565 frozen birds, and the accompanying boxes, are to be delivered Tuesday afternoon straight from the central kitchen’s freezer to school freezers for discrete distribution to the needy families on the half-day of school Wednesday morning before the Thanksgiving break.
Sharon and Al Barbarotta with some of the contents.
AFB got the ball rolling with its own $10,000 contribution. In addition to contributing dollars to the effort, other groups like Local 287 drivers and the custodians will contribute time Tuesday for an additional run to deliver the boxed bounty.
Clark, who helped launch the program six years ago with AFB, said that families in all 50 city schools had been identified by social workers or other school staff as needing a big holiday meal. Many of the families need the food to tide them over the long weekend.
Clark said that hunger isn’t picky about what school it strikes: Families in every one of the schools in the system are represented in the program’s beneficiaries. Over 90 percent of the school system’s students qualify for free or reduced meals, Clark said, so it’s no surprise that the program is growing. “The need is there,” he said.
“We’re not competing” with the many food drives and other holiday programs at the schools, he said. The central kitchen facility provides a unique opportunity to give families full meals, with the turkey, and that, in part was why they launched the effort.
With Nast supervising, Tate Barbarotta handled the mashed potatoes .
When Barbarotta and Clark began the program, it fed 1,000 families. Now it’s up by 50 percent, and growing, with deliveries this year also to schools in East Haven, West Haven, and Stamford as well.
Among the contributors of cash and discounted goods from companies that supply AFB and the Board of Ed were First Student, Palmieri Foods, Gilbane Construction, and ABM, the firm that provides custodial services to the schools.
The first boxes were filled Monday with cranberry, beans, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and apple or pumpkin pies. Volunteer, Mark Altieri, an energy consultant to the school system, was already wheeling them out to the dock for loading onto the school’s delivery trucks.
“Sixty-six families have a happy Thanksgiving,” he said. “Glad to do it.”
“We are putting food in people’s mouths,” said Scott Iwaniec (pictured), who was preparing the boxes.“We’re really helping.”
Board of Ed member Michael Nast, a regular Thanksgiving packer, said, “It’s rewarding to help others. I take a special interest in pleasure in watching our employees do this.”
As Barbarotta cruised among the volunteers — including his wife, two brothers, his son, daughter-in-law, and grand-nephew Tate (pictured) — he said he was hoping to buy more than 1,565 turkeys, but his supplier couldn’t come through in part because there’s a turkey shortage. Also, the price is going up.
Mark Altieri loading the first 66.
Next year’s goal: 2,000 turkeys next year to feed 2,000 families.
Figuring that each bird and fixings feeds six to eight people, Barbarotta said that when he sits down at his own Thanksgiving table — with eight siblings, the table is big — his Thanksgiving thoughts run along these lines: Through his efforts and that of the others they have fed about 10,000 people. “I don’t need anything else.”
