Community Corner

1,000 Pendleton Military Families Get Free Turkeys

San Clemente Military Families Outreach raised the money, bought the food and distributed it to grateful Pendleton families Monday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following was submitted by volunteers for San Clemente Military Families Outreach.

When Amy Embury and her three children reached the end of the serving line beside Camp Pendleton's San Onofre commissary Monday, they were delighted to find they weren’t too late to pick up a plump turkey and all the fixings for a thanksgiving dinner.

The dinners were being supplied by in a four-hour distribution that eventually totalled 1,000 families.

Find out what's happening in San Clementewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“I think it’s wonderful that you do things like this,” said Embury, whose husband Andrew is a sergeant with 1st Recon. “It really helps out at holiday time.”

Volunteers for the local Outreach, who hand out the makings of a traditional dinner to families each year, say Embury’s comments are not unusual.

Find out what's happening in San Clementewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

”The genuine gratitude shown by these families, especially the children, is really unusual” said volunteer Bob Crittendon. “This is my fourth year, and I still hear families say that they wouldn’t have had a Thanksgiving without this help.”

It’s part of a tradition started nine years ago when SCMFO’s predecessor, Friends of San Onofre Marines, began the morale project to give a boost to low income military families facing an uncertain holiday season.

Over the years, some backers may have balked at the costs--which have risen to more than $25,000--but the organization has never turned a family away. 

“Nor will we,” added Kathleen Morea, current SCMFO chair. “We owe a lot to our loyal donors who respond to a late August mailing and the . They take ‘Semper Fidelis’ very seriously.“

The Thanksgiving event is in addition to the Outreach’s principal mission--providing an ongoing response to day-to-day needs for food, clothing, gas, car repairs and other unexpected family emergencies for local military families.

Christine Gonzalez, event chair and herself a Pendleton parent with three kids, summed it up best by saying, ”our best guess was that we would run out of turkeys and deserving families at about the same time.“

Her reckoning was right on target, with all families served and all turkeys distributed, The line that began forming at 6:15 a.m. finally dissolved by mid-afternoon.

Food stations that began the day stacked with frozen turkeys, dressing mix, gravy, corn and potatoes, cranberry sauce and pies were cleaned out in several hours.

gives the event a boost for the final component, the pumpkin pies, which were made possible by special pricing from the store management.

The San Clemente Military Family Outreach organization dispensed plenty of thanks all around. In addition to about 30 SCMFO volunteers working the lines, there were off-duty Marines assisting with the heavy lifting and cleanup and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts bagging supplies and helping cart groceries to cars.

The real thanks, though, was saved for the military families themselves and displayed on a large SCMFO poster that concluded simply, “Thank you for your sacrifice.”


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here