When the donor for a Hudson Valley soup kitchen's Thanksgiving Day meal backed out at the last minute, Diane Reeder turned to her friends for help -- all 2,369 of them.
Reeder had planned to feed 300 needy people at her Queens Galley soup kitchen in Kingston, N.Y., on Thanksgiving, but the donor of the food backed out on Monday. Reeder says she didn't have the budget to buy enough turkey and all the trimmings.
She says she went online Tuesday and sent out a desperate plea for help to her 2,369 friends on Facebook, the social-networking website. She wrote that she only had 48 hours to get everything needed for Thanksgiving dinner.
The friends came to the rescue, delivering jugs of apple cider, heaps of vegetables and trays of dessert in time for Thursday's dinner to her Kingston neighbors, many who are unemployed or are struggling to make ends meet.
Reeder told the Times-Herald Record that she appreciates the help, but added that the soup kitchen only dishes out half of its usual 600 daily meals on Thanksgiving.
"Everyone wants to come out and volunteer at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving," she told the Record. "But you know what? On Monday we'll be back to one person cooking and one person serving. That's when we need the help."
