ORLANDO - The Orlando Magic and Amway Corporation’s annual turkey dinner distribution had a different look and feel this year, but the impact it’s going to make on hundreds of local families will likely be greater than ever before. So many have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and are in need of some extra support. The hope the Magic and Amway have is that their participation in Monday’s event will ease up some of their stress and make Thanksgiving more enjoyable than it might otherwise have been under the current conditions.
Magic staff members, including Community Ambassador Bo Outlaw, District 5 Commissioner Regina Hill and volunteers from Amway and various other groups loaded up trunks with Thanksgiving food, including turkey, gravy, corn, stuffing, sweet potato and pumpkin pie, in the parking lot outside Orlando’s Northwest Neighborhood Center. Drive-thru stations were set up so that nobody receiving the food had to exit their vehicles. Magic forward Aaron Gordon helped sponsor the event with a large financial donation.
“This is not just special, it is a blessing, especially during perilous times like this,” Hill said. “Right now with many of them (local families) that had been working in the hospitality industry, that work in our event centers, and also in the hotel industry, they have not been working since the shutdown. Many of them are underemployed, unemployed or furloughed, so to have the Aaron Gordon Foundation and the Orlando Magic partner with my office is a dream come true.”
Assisting others and lifting their spirits is the norm for Outlaw, who has done an incredible amount of community work over the years to better people’s lives. Now more than ever, the former NBA player yearns to lend a helping hand and help people get through these remarkably tough, unprecedented times.
“This is something we’ve been doing for years, but this year it’s a little different because we are able to do it under these circumstances,” he said. “The pandemic is here hitting hard, but we are still in the community trying to give back and making sure that people are taken care of. This is really a time of need because a lot of different things are going on. Where we are at in today’s society, this is the ultimate opportunity to give back.”
Grateful to have the Magic aboard for this event, Rodney Williams, the City of Orlando’s Recreation Division Manager, believes it’s efforts like this that strengthens people. So many have been reaching out for help, and to see the Magic and other organizations step up and show such tremendous compassion is extremely heartening.
“Any time we are able to do a food drive and be able to feed families, it’s a huge help and it’s letting them know that the city, the Magic and all the other sponsors and Commissioner Hill care about them, and that’s important that they know that somebody out here cares about them,” Williams said.
This was just the latest of several Thanksgiving-related community events the Magic are involved in this year.
On Thursday, Nov. 18, Magic players Markelle Fultz and Al-Farouq Aminu sponsored a different drive-thru turkey distribution event. That one was in Eatonville, located six miles north of downtown Orlando, and it helped support Magic chaplain Eddie Cole, who is also the mayor of the town, and the people of that community. Through Fultz and Aminu’s generosity, 300 underserved families and senior citizens were each given a 32-pound staple food pantry box and a 30-pound produce box. All of the turkeys handed out were donated by HostDime.
Then on Saturday, Nov. 20, in an event sponsored by Magic center Nikola Vucevic, 165 Thanksgiving meals were distributed to low-income neighborhoods in the Osceola County School District. Called “Basket Brigade,” volunteers created 1,500 baskets of food, which included turkey, corn, gravy, cranberry sauce, rice, stuffing and mashed potatoes, and delivered them to underprivileged families.
On Thanksgiving Day, the Magic will continue their tradition of serving a Thanksgiving breakfast to the 300-plus residents at the Coalition for the Homeless and the more than 100 unsheltered homeless individuals from the community. This is the 28th year the Magic are hosting the breakfast. On hand to serve the food will be Outlaw and Magic Head Coach Steve Clifford.