HUNTINGTON BEACH : One-Parent Families Get Holiday Help

For most of the year, some single parents are able to provide their families with meals that are only as lavish as food stamps and their tight budgets will allow.

But today, 69 single-parent families in the Huntington Beach area will feast on hot turkey dinners with their favorite trimmings.

The Thanksgiving dinners are gifts from individuals, groups and businesses that have donated food or supermarket gift certificates to help the families celebrate the holiday.

The meals are provided through the “adopt-a-family” program initiated this year by the city’s Project Self-Sufficiency, which helps more than 100 single parents make ends meet for the present and get on track to escape welfare dependency in the future.

The 3-year-old project, which is funded by private donations and federal grants, has offered free Thanksgiving meals in previous years. But, by collecting donated food and distributing it as far as it reached, it was able to serve only about 30 families, said Susan Edwards, the project’s acting coordinator.

The adopt-a-family program offers dinners to more single parents, while adding a more personal touch to the gifts, Edwards said.

This Thanksgiving, the project has linked contributors with every family that requested a meal, Edwards said.

The donated dinners are tailored to suit the specific needs of each family. And, in some cases, the person or group representative sponsoring the family’s meal is delivering the meal to their front door, she said.

“We’ve left it up to the (donating) community members to decide how they want to handle it,” she said.

In one of the more unusual cases, she said, a pair of 21-year-old men packed a laundry basket with an “instant Thanksgiving dinner”--including instant gravy, potatoes and stuffing, along with cans of corn, green beans and rolls.

“That was just their idea of what a Thanksgiving dinner should be,” she said. “And they put a lot of time and money into it.”

Most contributors, Edwards said, “have been very generous,” donating meals or their equivalent totaling between $25 and $50.

Edwards, meanwhile, is now gearing up to provide meals to 80 families for Christmas, and beyond then, since the project attempts to provide some meals year-round for some of its members.

“People are very generous during the holidays, but the rest of the year is usually pretty lean,” she said. “During March, April and May, our food pantry is naked.”