Saturday, December 14, 2024, employees, clients, and friends of Nova Scotia’s own Eastport Financial delivered full turkey dinners to 750 families in need from the South Shore to Halifax and beyond, marking a milestone of fifteen years of generosity and joy.
In December 2010, event founder and Eastport CEO Jonathan Lewis first bought 1000 turkeys in seven hours on his own credit card ‘on a whim,’ as he explains, cleaning out every local store after a chance encounter at a local gas station:
Lewis went home feeling saddened, but then called two friends and sprang into action. Together they went from one grocery store to the next, clearing out freezers and filling the trunks of two cars and the back of his pickup truck over the next seven hours. From there they went to trailer parks and apartment buildings to knock on doors, distributing turkeys to dumbfounded people in need.
“You can judge a society based on how we love, protect, fight for, and cherish the people who are the most at risk,” says Lewis. “If we only care about ourselves, that is the beginning of the end for any society. Especially now, as Canadians, we don’t have to look far to find someone who is struggling.”
From his vantage point on the back of the delivery truck, Lewis sees a greater need in 2024 than ever.
“There was always a segment of people who needed food desperately,” he says. “Now, we see middle class people who just can’t pay all their bills in the same month, let alone host Santa Claus and extended family for a meal. This time of year amplifies what’s going on in your life. If you’re already struggling, you’re going to dread it. We want to offer some joy and relief.”
Lewis describes that first year as ‘a blast’, and that’s been the whirlwind tone of the Eastport Turkey Drive ever since.
Now with several hundred volunteers, the event has grown and partnered with Street Connection, the mobile soup bus in Spryfield, Mulgrave Park and North End Dartmouth; with Souls Harbour Rescue Mission in HRM; and with many more business partners who drive trucks and make deliveries. The Eastport team also teams up with food banks, churches, and community centres in rural areas spanning Yarmouth, Digby, Liverpool, and the South Shore, as well as a satellite crew in Newfoundland.
With turkeys in short supply over the pandemic years of Christmas 2020 and 2021, Lewis brought what he calls ‘entrepreneurial vigor’ to the task, calling a client who sat on the board of a major supplier in the province and living out his Robin Hood reputation:
“We stopped an armoured tractor trailer coming from the farm on its way to the grocery store,” says Lewis. “We raided the truck and relieved him of 700 turkeys, the driver cheering us on. We had everything short of bandanas and the six shooters! We didn’t stop because no matter what’s going on in the world, the hunger doesn’t stop.”
Along with its clients, volunteers, and business leaders throughout Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the Eastport crew celebrated fifteen years of generosity by delivering Turkey dinners to 750 families in need, including a bag of potatoes, onions, carrots, stuffing, apple pie, and of course—a savoury turkey.
Eastport Financial is a heart-centred financial services company investing social and spiritual capital in its people, clients, and community.
