Mel Trotter Ministries - Turkey Drop 2025

Chris Palusky, CEO of Mel Trotter Ministries joins us to discuss who will benefit from today's Turkey Drop!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This This is West Michigan's Morning News Steve Kelly and
Bred Bikita. We are underway the twenty second annual Turkey
Drop for Meltrotter Ministries. Our special live broadcast today will
go to noon. That's right until noon and then I'm
not sure why I'm talking like that special live broadcast
from five to six this evening at Celebration Cinema North.

(00:25):
Let's get into the goods of this thing. The Turkey
Drop for Meltrotter Ministries, in its twenty second year, helps
a little place called Meltrotter Ministries and their CEO is
Chris Puluski. This is his second ever Turkey Drop. Chris,
thanks for joining us again today.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you man.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Did you jump into things this time last year? You've
had a year to sort of reflect about the community
and the neat things that they do when they come together.
Talk to us a little bit about how you have
been preparing and thinking about what this day means for
the ministry.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, I'll be honest, I've just been kind of getting
flecked up. It's a great way for the community to
come out and just do something really tangible, helping their
neighbor outs and I just remember last year too, there
was like a line of cars and it was you know,
like grandparents with their grandkids. It was, you know, an ambulance. Actually,

(01:22):
we have life EMF here right now and they just
loaded about seven hundred pouns of church. It was the
community coming out. So I was getting ready for the
community to come out and celebrate and help help their
neighbor out. Is did you having a tough time right now?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Chris? It's one of those things too that now that
you've done it for a year and obviously you've been
big in this and you guys work philanthropically with other
organizations across West Michigan. Is that triangle coming together that
we talk about, you know, Miss Skegan, We've got a
drop off location there, Hollan, we got a drop off
location there. I mean truly, wherever you are listening right

(01:56):
now to Wood Radio, you're helping out your community locally
perspective wise. If you listening on the Lakeshore as well
as Grand.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Rapids, Absolutely it's hyper local. It's for West Michigan, and
it's wonderful seat West Michigan come out and support their neighbor.
And again, I can't stress what an exciting feeling. It
is just to see people coming out to help their
neighbor out and doing something. They're getting involved during the

(02:24):
holidays teas.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
The government shutdown was an inconvenience for most of us.
It caused panic for those people who have food insecurity.
Because of that, in the last couple of weeks, food
shelters have had a tough time keeping up with demand.
So I don't know, I'm a little worried about our
ability to take care of those involved in the turkey
drop and for your holiday meals, some of those turkeys

(02:47):
will go for that as well. Talk to us about
the need this year, Chris.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, there were food stamp cuts, snap cuts this year
or are pause and you know, we've just seen we've
actually seen an increase at the mission of people coming
down just to have a meal. So we invite people
for dinner if they want to come down and have
dinner for it for anybody in the community, and we've
seen an increase in that. The situation has just become

(03:13):
a little more difficult this year, so we are concerned
about it. But that's why we see this as a
great opportunity for the community to come out and support
and help help your neighbor.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Chris. We've talked about all morning long. Steve's laid out
the drop off locations. They're all listed right there, but
I want you to kind of take people through because
I love the turkey trail and everything that's at Melchrodder
dot org. That explains today and how easy it is
even to donate online right now twenty dollars meaning one turkey, yep.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
So people can go turkey drop dot org and they
can donate a virtual turkey if they're not able to
come out, and if they are able to come out,
we are standing literally in front of Celebration Cinema right
now collecting turkeys. And I think I was actually a
little bit late to this interview because we've had this
whole life pull up and it was full full to

(04:02):
the rim with turkey. So there's many opportunities for people
to donate in person or virtually.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
We have a lot of great sponsors, including Life VMS
and some folks in the community that will step up
and give some matches today. We can't tell you how
excited we are about that. We'll share in just a
little bit and we'll check back in with Chris from
time to time, the CEO of Meltrotter Ministries. God bless
you for your work and we will talk to you

(04:29):
again soon. Thanks Chris, thank you,