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Feed A Friend Giveaway for More than 1,700 Families

SCRANTON — Many of your donations to WNEP’s Feed A Friend program are being distributed Tuesday in Lackawanna County. United Neighborhood Centers in...

SCRANTON -- Many of your donations to WNEP's Feed A Friend program are being distributed Tuesday in Lackawanna County.

United Neighborhood Centers in Scranton will hand out hundreds of Thanksgiving food baskets ahead of the holiday.

Inside St. Mary's Center on Mifflin Avenue is a well-oiled machine that will distribute hundreds of Thanksgiving food baskets. Student volunteers help folks carry all the food to their cars out in the parking lot.

Thousands of brown paper bags contain almost everything you need for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Folks like Charles Dyer already have the most important ingredient -- family. But United Neighborhood Center's annual Thanksgiving food basket giveaway provides the parts that are sometimes tough for families to afford.

Close to 2,000 families registered with UNC and volunteers were prepared to register more walk-ins. Each family must have children to qualify.

"At United Neighborhood Centers, we're seeing a lot more families, working families, is really what we're seeing," said Tammy Marcinkevich. "We even extended our food pantry hours on Thursdays. We're now open from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. just to serve those families that are working 9 to 5."

That includes Aurora Bajuelo and her family in Scranton.

"It means a lot of help, thank you, for helping people, for this Thanksgiving."

Student volunteers help make it all happen and make the work feel less like work. They are served an important lesson.

"As I'm giving everyone their stuff, I'm like, 'wow, I'm thankful for that I don't have to worry about that," said Nico Summa of Dunmore.

Those Thanksgiving food baskets given out Tuesday in Scranton are made, in part, because of donations to WNEP' s Feed A Friend program, another of the cherished Thanksgiving traditions here in northeastern Pennsylvania.

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