Yeager Memorial Thanksgiving Outreach Program
From Special Reports
THANKSGIVING, a day when family and friends gather around a table with a huge, golden turkey in the center and give thanks for all of their blessings. At least that’s how Norman Rockwell would have us believe.
Unfortunately, many families will not have a large feast to celebrate. However, for the last twenty years or so, a few people have tried to help. Two of these were Lieutenant Colonel Bob Yeager of the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office and Colonel Tom Guzzo, a retired US Army Veteran. Together they organized and funded a project to provide complete Thanksgiving dinners to the needy of the county. LTC Bob would do all the planning, preparing the menu, shopping, and negotiating with the local stores, and with the help of his deputies, assemble the boxes and deliver the dinners.
As the county grew, so did the need. Together LTC Bob and Col. Tom provided these dinners quietly and without much fanfare. Sadly, on March 2, 2020, LTC Bob passed away. Col. Tom knew he could not run the program by himself, with it growing to almost 400 families, since all he ever did was pay the bills.
Fortunately, Col. Tom remembered One Roof Outreach. He met with Dr. Ann Kerlin, the Executive Director of One Roof, which had the resources and expertise to run the program. But, like most charities, they needed funds. Col. Tom had the funds.
One Roof Outreach could organize the project, schedule pickups and deliveries, expand the menu, and had the facilities such as refrigeration, van, and contacts to stretch the dollars and feed more families. This year, One Roof Outreach started distributing Thanksgiving meals and turkeys on November 4 and over the next few weeks distributed close to 500 turkeys with all the fixings.
We think LTC Bob is looking down on us with approval; One Roof and Tom Guzzo would like to name this year’s Thanksgiving meals after Bob Yeager and view it as a continuation of the program he led for decades. We appreciate all of the volunteers who helped us with the Yeager Memorial Thanksgiving Outreach.
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One Roof Outreach would like to continue to provide holiday meals throughout the season. If you would like to join us by donating, visit our website at oneroofoutreach.org. We would also like to thank the Heritage School, Line Creek Church, Newnan Presbyterian and Unity Baptist for generously providing fresh food and canned goods for the holiday meal boxes we will continue giving out into December.
