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LAWRENCE: Neighborhood Service Center gives a Thanksgiving pick-up

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   Virginia Finney waited patiently in line at the Lawrence Neighborhood Service Center Tuesday afternoon to pick up her family’s Thanksgiving food basket — complete with a frozen turkey and all the trimmings.
   ”It’s a good thing they are doing this,” Ms. Finney said. “It helps a whole lot of people. It really does. People come from everywhere (for the food baskets). A little help does everybody good.”
   Ms. Finney, who lives in Trenton with her husband, said she grew up in Lawrence and noted that the Lawrence Neighborhood Service Center has distributed Thanksgiving food baskets for as long as she can remember.
   Robin Dembowski, who lives in Lawrence, also waited for her family’s food basket. She agreed that “it’s terrific” that the neighborhood center, located on Eggerts Crossing Road, prepared the baskets.
   ”My husband is in between jobs and we are kind of struggling to afford Thanksgiving,” Ms. Dembowski said of her family, which includes five children between 7 and 18.
   ”This (Thanksgiving basket) helps a great deal. I come here once a month for the food pantry,” said Ms. Dembowski, who works in outreach at a behavioral health center.
   Ms. Finney and Ms. Dembowski were among the 200-plus households that received a frozen turkey and assorted other goods at the Lawrence Neighborhood Service Center. Although the doors were not slated to be open until 12:30 p.m., recipients began lining up around 11 a.m. and the decision was made to open the doors early.
   The volunteers who had signed up to help hand out the food baskets were not there when the doors opened at 11:30 a.m., so some of the recipients themselves volunteered to help, said Carlos Hendricks, the executive director of the Lawrence Neighborhood Service Center.
   The food baskets are given out to income-eligible families, Mr. Hendricks said. A family of four cannot earn more than $25,812 in order to qualify, he said. The maximum income for a family of six is $34,512 and for a family of eight, it is $43,212.
   ”Can you imagine feeding a family of eight on $43,000? There’s the rent, groceries and car payments. With the way the economy is going, it’s really tough,” Mr. Hendricks said.
   That’s why the Thanksgiving food baskets and the food pantry that operates year-round are so important, he said. There is increasing demand for those services, he said, adding that last year the center gave out about 170 baskets and this year more than 200 baskets were given out.
   The Thanksgiving food basket program has a long history at the Lawrence Neighborhood Service Center, Mr. Hendricks said. It has been going on “for 25 years at least,” he said, noting that his aunt, Edie Hendricks, started the program with former LNSC Executive Director Fred Vereen.
   ”My aunt literally collected turkeys and whatever she needed, and then she would take it to people’s houses. She always did that — she gave to the needy,” he said, adding that his aunt was the first community worker at the fledgling neighborhood center in the 1970s.
   Jumping forward to the current effort, the Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church, the Lawrence Road Presbyterian Church, the Church of St. Ann and Boy Scout Troop 28 have all contributed toward the baskets, Mr. Hendricks said.