On Saturday, Harvest for the Hungry continued their long tradition of making sure local families had food to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Volunteers were on hand to put a turkey and a box of food in the car and get them on the way as the line of cars went around the block.

“We’re giving out 500 Thanksgiving dinners today,” said Harvest for the Hungry’s director. “It consists of a turkey and everything you would put around it.”

Because they don’t have cold storage at the pantry, the pantry rents a tractor trailer to store the frozen turkeys. And there were some substitutions.

“Obviously, because some things are perishable, we aren’t putting a pumpkin pie in there. We put in a cake mix, something that can be prepared.”

Porter said that 500 people were signed up in the month of October.

As for the volunteers that were taking names, checking them off the list and then distributing the food, there were people from the Kiwanis Club of Greater Ironton, Ironton city councilman Chris Perry and people doing community service for the Lawrence County Common Pleas Courts of judges Christine Finley and Andy Ballard.

“It’s been wonderful,” Porter said. “It’s amazing and going well. We’ve been doing this for 11 years and we are getting it down to a fine science.”

While the distribution took place on Saturday, they have been working towards it for a couple days.

“We set up an assembly line. People are stationed along the conveyor belt and put stuff in the box. Then we roll it down the conveyor belt and another group tapes up the box,” Porter said. “It’s a lot of work but we have a good time. And we feed them, we are a food pantry. During events like this, we feed you.”