Project Holiday feeds record numbers in Johnson County

Hours before Wednesday's blizzard rolled in, Angel Ross set out to get the fixings for Christmas dinner.

Besides a turkey, Ross picked up sweet potatoes, brownie mix and a few staples such as flour and sugar. The bill came to zero.

“I believe in helping the poor people,” said Ross, 42. “And helping the rich to help the poor, too.”

Ross, who works at a Coralville pet-supply store, is one of nearly 5,000 people putting holiday dinner on the table the help from the Crisis Center of Johnson County's Project Holiday. The neighborhood group home where Ross lives with other people with disabilities is one of 1,643 households receiving food.

Both numbers are records for the project, marking its 25th year. But more families in need and higher costs keep the pressure on donors who buy the groceries.

“The turkeys are 10 cents more expensive per pound,” Sarah Benson Witry, food bank and emergency director at the Crisis Center, wrote in an email. “Each turkey weighs 10 to 14 pounds, and we are ordering 1,000, which means we will spend roughly $1,300 more, just on turkeys.”

“We used to order $20,000 or $25,000 worth of food, and we just hope we're going to get enough donations to cover that,” said Judy Atkins, a volunteer organizer for the project. “We are on the hook for the food and just have to keep our fingers crossed.”

Atkins said 600 to 700 people signed up for Project Holiday when she started volunteering in 1996.

“The last couple years they've had upward of 1,000 people sign up,” she said. “That's monumental.”

With no formal eligibility rules, the project is open to “anyone who identified as in need,” Benson Witry said. “We don't have any income guidelines, because we know that people may not meet the guidelines but are still in need.”

Many in need

The Iowa Policy Project calculates more than a quarter of Iowa residents don't earn enough to cover basic living costs, with 74 percent of that number being single parents.

Last year, volunteers handed out 800 whole turkeys, 340 whole chickens, 300 turkey roasts and 60 “tofurkey” vegetarian turkey roast substitutes, feeding 3,512 people in 1,223 households, Benson Witry said.

Teams of volunteers helped hand out food over three days last week in Coralville and Iowa City - a North Liberty distribution was canceled because of weather.

“It's an undertaking,” said Atkins, of Iowa City.

“I think there's a lot of need out there,” said Norbert Sarsfield, who volunteered to help with the first day's distribution. “It seemed like a good thing to do, and I'm glad I did it.”

Ross said she was looking forward to turning the groceries in her basket into a traditional meal for about a half-dozen “counselors and roommates and friends.”

“I stay busy,” she said. “They keep me busy. I used to be in trouble years ago - I got into trouble. I got straightened out, though.”

Atkins said volunteers will start planning next year's Project Holiday in a few months.

“In the fall it really has to get ratcheted up, you have to decide if there's any changes you want to make” to meet higher prices, Atkins said.