Columbus Kappas Hand Out More Than 2,000 Turkeys at 17th Annual Linden Giveaway

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Cars lined up outside Linden STEM Academy on Saturday morning, November 14, as the Columbus Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. handed out more than 2,000 turkeys, along with produce and Thanksgiving side dishes, at its 17th Annual Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaway, according to BR Weekly Press.

The free distribution ran from 8 to 11 a.m. at the school, 2626 Cleveland Ave., while supplies lasted, BR Weekly Press reported. By the end of the morning, more than 2,000 Columbus households had a turkey and the trimmings for a holiday meal — the product of months of planning by chapter members, community partners and volunteers.

This year’s giveaway was led by Committee Chairman Leo Prillerman, whose planning and coordination brought together chapter members, partners and volunteers for the large-scale distribution, according to BR Weekly Press. “No matter how tired I am after the Columbus, Ohio Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Annual Turkey Giveaway, it’s always worth it,” Prillerman told BR Weekly Press.

“This is what we do, giving back to the community, doing this with our D9 brothers and sisters, volunteers from the community as well,” Mark Ervin, Polemarch of the Columbus Alumni Chapter, told BR Weekly Press. Chapter members were joined by volunteers from fellow Divine Nine organizations — the nine historically Black fraternities and sororities — and by young men participating in Kappa League, the chapter’s youth outreach program, BR Weekly Press reported.

Among those attending were State Senator Hearcel F. Craig of Columbus and Ohio House Representative-elect Charity Martin King, according to BR Weekly Press. Kappa Santa also made an appearance, along with representatives of Magic 95.5 and Urban One’s Power 107.5, as elected officials, broadcasters and neighbors worked the line alongside fraternity members.

The event’s promotional flyer identified the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, the city of Columbus, the Mid-Ohio Food Collective’s food pantry partner network, Walmart, Urban One and iHeartRadio among its community partners and sponsors, BR Weekly Press reported. That coalition — county and city government, the region’s food-bank network and local businesses — is what allows a volunteer fraternity chapter to move more than 2,000 turkeys in a single morning.

Saturday’s distribution marked substantial growth from the giveaway’s early years. A 2021 Columbus City Council ordinance described an initiative that began with 100 turkeys and expanded to 1,000 turkeys and complete meals, and identified hunger reduction as a purpose of the program, according to BR Weekly Press.

City records also document the giveaway’s sustained reach. In a 2023 funding ordinance, the Columbus Kappa Foundation reported distributing 3,150 turkeys and meals over the preceding four years, feeding an estimated 20,000 residents, BR Weekly Press reported. The council described the effort as serving neighborhoods where access to healthy, affordable food was limited — a description that fits Linden, where Saturday’s line of cars formed before the doors opened.

The giveaway has become a fixture of Columbus’s Thanksgiving season: 17 years in, it pairs adult volunteers with young people taking part in the chapter’s community outreach, bringing multiple generations into the same service effort. For the families who drove through Linden STEM Academy on Saturday, the result was concrete — a turkey, produce and side dishes on the table for November 26.

The logistics explain the line of cars in the photo coverage: a three-hour window, a school parking lot on Cleveland Avenue, and volunteers moving turkeys, produce and side dishes car by car, according to BR Weekly Press. The giveaway was free and ran while supplies lasted, and the chapter’s partners — from the Franklin County commissioners to the Mid-Ohio Food Collective’s pantry network — supplied the scale that a single fraternity chapter could not reach on its own.

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What happens next is the holiday itself: the more than 2,000 households served Saturday will sit down to Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, November 26, with food provided by their neighbors. The chapter has run the giveaway for 17 straight years, and nothing in Saturday’s turnout suggested year 18 will be any smaller.