Yanks, SCAN-NY serve up Thanksgiving meal
Sixth annual dinner held at Mullally Recreation Center
NEW YORK -- The Yankees got an early jump on the Thanksgiving holiday in their neighborhood on Friday, hosting a feast in the backyard of Yankee Stadium for several hundred local residents.
Legends Hospitality, the Supportive Children's Advocacy Network (SCAN) and the Yankees teamed at the Mullally Recreation Center -- just a long poke beyond the Stadium's left-field fence -- to dish out turkey and all the trimmings to families living in East Harlem and the South Bronx.
"We threw some things around, came up with this amazing concept and we made it happen," said Brian Smith, the Yankees' senior vice president, corporate/community relations. "Together, we brought all this together. You can see -- an outstanding turnout, a lot of smiling faces -- and we feel like it's a good event."
This is the sixth consecutive year that the Yankees and Legends Hospitality have served Thanksgiving meals with SCAN-NY, an organization that has provided support to thousands of New York City's at-risk families since 1977.
SCAN-NY's mission is to provide these families and children with integrated family-focused programming which uses a positive approach to harness self-esteem, initiative and the development of life skills.
"We've been running this facility for 25 years, and from the day we got here, the Yankees have been our major community support," said Lew Zuchman, SCAN-NY's executive director. "This is special. Many of them don't have a decent Thanksgiving dinner.
"With the Yankees' support, we also give Christmas gifts to every kid. As they grow up, this is going to mean something to them and they are going to feel that the Yankees are a part of our community."
Smith said that this is an exciting time of year around the organization, which kicked off its holiday season with a voucher giveaway on Thursday at Yankee Stadium that provided more than 2,500 turkeys to families preparing Thanksgiving meals.
"We are blessed as an organization, from the standpoint of the commitment to be a good and productive member of the community," Smith said. "It's from our ownership down. It's organization-wide. With that support, we're able to do things like this today, so this definitely reflects the commitment of the Steinbrenner family and the New York Yankees organization."