Normandy Park residents Candace and Tay Krull are doing a rather unusual, Thanksgiving-themed fundraiser at their home – they’ve set up a voting system to decide on whether to pardon or eat their pet turkeys, and are basing their decision on the amount of food donations they receive:
Helping the community doesn’t come new to this family – Tay Krull works for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest Realty (a South King Media sponsor), and he has been the driving force behind their annual Diaper Drive for Foster Kids (read more about that here).
But this fundraiser was all Candace’s idea, as a way to help teach their own two foster kids.
“I thought it would be good for the boys to have a way to do something for the homeless that we could do as a family and would have a little bigger impact,” she told The B-Town Blog. “So I came up with the idea to use our turkeys and have people vote (with cans of food) on whether we keep the turkeys, or whether we eat them.”
The turkeys were purchased last spring as chicks from the feed store, and Candace thought it would be “really funny” to get a couple of turkey chicks along with a couple of chicken chicks and see how long before Tay noticed that things didn’t look quite right.
“Unfortunately, I made the mistake of showing my boys the chicks and telling them my plan,” she said. “At dinner that night my little guy Daniel just blurts out of nowhere ‘Mommy got turkey today!’ Too much excitement for a 7-year old to keep under his hat I guess…”
The Krull birds are Royal Palm turkeys.
“They don’t look like the traditional brown thanksgiving turkey,” Candace added. “Our turkeys are white with some black feathers, and are about 8-months old.”
Candace adds:
“They say if you’re going to eat your turkeys you have to do it in the first year, otherwise the meat gets tough. So we’re at a critical crossroads at the moment and our house is divided. Tay and Ray don’t want to eat them. They think of the turkeys as pets. My youngest Daniel and I want to eat the turkeys. I had the intention to eat the birds when I bought them so I guess that’s always been in the back of my head. And my little guy Daniel, he is always down to eat something yummy! “I really think it’s important to know where our food comes from. We have a good size vegetable garden and I try to encourage my boys to be involved so they can learn this stuff. We have a number of chickens and the boys help taking care of them and collecting their eggs. When we have had sick or hurt chickens over the years I teach the boys how to doctor and take care of them. I want our boys to know where their food comes from but even MORE important is to know how much work and care goes into everything from our raspberry we snack on to our thanksgiving turkey. “Our little grassroots food drive is in our front yard. Corner of 200th and 3rd Ave SW. We’ve been trying to have to turkeys out front by 9 a.m. and bring them in (to their coop) about dark around 5-6ish. There has been a non-stop amount of people stopping and taking pictures of Tom and Jerry (that’s their names, a boy and a girl). And we have collected over 250 items of food so far! That’s over just this last weekend – 3 days! People have been so generous and passionate about pardoning or eating the birds. It’s been a lot of fun talking with people. The police have stopped to check on how the votes are going. One lady wanted to know if there would be a pardoning ceremony.”And yes, YOU can help them decide their turkeys’ fate by donating non-perishable cans of food at the corner of SW 200th Street and 3rd Ave SW in Normandy Park (map below). “Since we’ve had such an outpouring of people stopping by just to see the turkeys, we’ll probably keep the food drive going til a couple days before Thanksgiving,” Candace added. ]]>
