Pierce County motorcyclists, birds and smiles at Thanksgiving food bank giveaway

A food bank run by the local motorcycle community is getting ready to hand out hundreds of turkey dinners to families in need at Thanksgiving.

It’s the 15th year Bikers Against Statewide Hunger (BASH) will do the large-scale giveaway in Pierce County. Co-founder Vickie Houk told The News Tribune what it takes to put together the dinner baskets, which they’ll hand out Friday.

Question: What’s the idea behind BASH?

Answer: It was just a way for the motorcycling community to help more of the community instead of just helping ourselves. It’s a community of bikers that are always wanting to help people.

Q: What do you give out for the holiday dinner?

A: It will be a turkey, potatoes, onion, celery, margarine and vegetables. We’ll also provide drinks — a Gatorade or bottled water. And we should have plenty of bananas, lots of apples and some type of bread product.

It’s pretty much the whole thing. We’ve got canned yams, olives, that kind of stuff. Whether it’s cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie mix with evaporated milk, every box will get something.

Q: How many turkeys do you think you’ll distribute?

A: We expect to hand out 400 to 500. And it’s first come, first serve. But if we run out of turkeys, we have 12-pound chickens from Trader Joe’s. Whoever comes on Friday is going to go away with something.

Q: What does that cost?

A: The turkey’s alone cost us $8,000. We set aside what we call holiday food. For what we have to purchase, it’s about $9,000.

Q: How do you raise the money?

A: Our major one is what we call our Turkey Basket Run. It’s a big motorcycle event that leaves from Eagle Leather in Lakewood. We go around town and end up somewhere and there’s an auction. We raised a little more than $3,000 at that event this year.

Q: You also had an online fund raiser for the senior holiday meals you distribute, right?

A: I think we ended up raising a whopping $40. We deliver the meals and we give them chickens instead of turkeys. We were hoping to get more funds so that we could do more of them this year, but it just didn’t happen. We’re only going to be able to do about 50 of them this year.

Q: Can people still donate to that?

A: They can. And if they do, whatever is in there is going to be run over for Christmas. We do the same thing at Christmas. We also do gifts for the elderly.

Q: How much does BASH spend on Christmas?

A: Probably between $8,000 and $10,000.

Q: Are holidays when you need the most help, then?

A: After the first of the year is when our food supply goes down and the money supply goes down. January through March are our hardest months.

Q: When do the doors open for the Friday giveaway?

A: We start handing them out at 9 a.m. at 103 140th St. S., Suite B in Tacoma. We’re at 140th and A.

Q: What does a family need to get a dinner?

A: They have to bring a utility bill, phone bill, something that has their name and address on it and is current. They will be turned away if they don’t have that.

Q: What’s it like on distribution day?

A: It’s indescribable. You have to be there to experience it. You’ve got 20 or 30 volunteers running around packing boxes. People out keeping everyone in line happy. We’ve got kids running boxes to people’s cars for them.

It’s absolutely overwhelming. Everybody is smiling and it’s very cool.

Q: Do you have 400 turkeys in a freezer right now?

A: I’ve ordered them through the meat company in Tacoma, and we will be picking them up at 7 a.m. Friday. We will be picking up 300. The others that we will be getting will be coming in during the week. They’re pretty expensive.

Q: What donations are you looking for?

A: Turkeys. We would love to have turkeys more than anything else.

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Pierce County motorcyclists, birds and smiles at Thanksgiving food bank giveaway."