With Thanksgiving right around the corner, local nonprofit leaders, volunteers and the NBA’s Shabazz Napier showed up to deliver food, essentials and holiday cheer to hundreds of families Sunday afternoon.
“My name’s on the shirt, but it’s not about me,” said Napier, addressing the room of volunteers readying to hand out food. “It’s about the community that loved and supported on me, and I’m pretty sure loved and supported every one of you guys. And I just want to say again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, and let’s just continue to give back each and every day we can.”
The National Basketball Players Association Foundation, YMCA of Greater Boston and Feed the Children teamed up in Sunday to distribute food and essential goods to 400 pre-registered families at the YMCA Food Distribution Hub in Roxbury.
The hundreds of local families pulled up through a drive-through line as volunteers hand-delivered a 25-pound box of food, 15-pound box of hygiene products and a stuffed toy through the chilly afternoon.
Napier, former NBA and UConn point guard and current coaching apprentice with the Washington Wizards, joined the dozens of volunteers running the boxes, turkeys and chickens up to cars and personally greeted families through their windows.
“I wasn’t raised in a home full of everything,” Napier said. “We had to scrap as well. So for me, it’s just an opportunity to do what so many people did for me as a young person; giving back, being there and guiding. If I needed something, someone was there to help me out. So it’s an amazing opportunity to be able to reciprocate that among the people I’m with right now; family and friends and people who I’ve just met. It’s an honor to be among these people.”
Feed the Children Senior VP Julie Laird Davis said the goods Sunday are “things that really help families stretch their dollar further.”
“SNAP benefits don’t cover things like essentials,” Davis said. “So it’s really helping when families have to make a choice between paying their rent or paying for their car payment to get to work. We’re really excited to support families with that, and with it being the holiday season, we’re also giving out Squishmallow toys.”
Davis encouraged people to keep giving at [feedthechildren.org](http://feedthechildren.org), noting “with the SNAP benefits that have been delayed, it’s especially important to support families right now with rising cost of food.”
Kathryn Saunders, Greater Boston YMCA senior director for partnerships and community relations, said Sunday’s event was one of many at the YMCA supporting communities through this holiday season, including upcoming meals at the Huntington, Dorchester, Wang and more facilities.
The giveback, Saunders said, sought to reach “folks in the Roxbury community, seniors, families, kids who may be the next Shabazz Napier in 10 or 15 years.”
“He had some of his first jobs at the Y and is very closely connected to some of our staff people,” Saunders said. “We all followed him and saw the great things that he was doing. And he really wanted to make sure that it was this community specifically.”
Napier said he was “always a YMCA kid” since he was around five and a half years old, noting he gave back at the Mission Hill location near where he grew up last week.
The NBA veteran said he’d wanted to do a turkey drive and “we got on the phone with a couple of people, and we made it happen.”
“It’s been a difficult time for us all, and I’ve always understood that if I can be in a position to help others, I should do that,” Napier said. “And I think with the help to Feed the Children, YMCA and NBPA, I was able to do that, and hopefully we can continue to do that through the years.”
Feed the Children’s Julie Laird Davis briefs volunteers and explains the contents of food and hygiene boxes during the YMCA of Greater Boston’s Thanksgiving Giveback. (Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald)