Loma Linda University School of Dentistry: Dentalgram, Dec. 2000

Thanksgiving Baskets help School families

Robin Fierro (left) and Maricella Solis, record analysts, help prepare bags of groceries in the dental school kitchen. The groceries and a monetary donation were given to 28 School of Dentistry families. This is the 16th anniversary of the School's Thanksgiving Basket project.

Throughout the year the School of Dentistry family works together, with students attending courses, and faculty and staff tending to the needs of our patients and doing what it takes to keep the clinics, classrooms, and facility functioning.

Though we work and study with hundreds of colleagues, classmates, and coworkers who comprise the School of Dentistry family, we often are not aware of the personal challenges facing those we see every day.

This year, 28 families were chosen as recipients of the School's Thanksgiving Basket project. According to Mary Hartwell, dental clinics manager, the names were submitted by department heads and class presidents. The families were each given six bags of groceries and a monetary donation. In addition to staples like canned goods the families were given pumpkin pies, and eggs donated by the McAnally Egg Ranch.

þThe McAnally Egg Ranch has been very generous,ú comments Ms. Hartwell, þand has donated 30 dozen eggs each year since the program started 16 years ago.ú

As soon as the posters announcing the project are displayed in the School each year, donations of food and money from faculty, students, and staff begin to pour in.

According to Jeni Christian, one of the volunteers who puts the bags of groceries together, the group is exhausted by the end of the day. þBut the notes of thanks we receive, and the stories we hear,ú she recalls, þare amazing. Each year each person who helps with the project comments that they receive a tremendous blessing from helping with the project.