Mike Mallory’s cupboard isn’t exactly bare but if you’re looking for a Thanksgiving feast complete with turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, rolls, and pumpkin pie you may be out of luck if you’re among 2,800 struggling families in Manteca, Lathrop, and Ripon.

The Second Harvest Food Bank that Mallory oversees has received an enormous shipment of cereal. That’s good news since as quick as the food comes in these days it immediately goes out to food closets serving the Northern San Joaquin Valley and the Gold Country. That stockpile of cereal may be needed to replace turkeys in Thanksgiving baskets going out to an estimated 2,800 families from church-based food closets in Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop.

Donations of turkeys and funds to the Turkeys R Us drive is the slowest it has been since the effort was started 13 years ago to make sure no one in Manteca, Ripon, or Lathrop went without on the day of thanks.

There is a surge at Thanksgiving as families that don’t usually request help with food turn to food closets because they simply can’t afford the traditional meal for their families. Many are the working poor barely making ends meet, single mothers, those dealing with a disability, low-income seniors on fixed incomes or unemployed. Turkey R Us also supplies turkeys to community, meals.

As of Monday, Turkeys R Us had collected $2,010 plus 21 turkeys. Mallory also on Monday found out he won’t probably have to pay more than 99 cents a pound for turkeys. That will keep the average cost per bird at $15. Even so, it is 37 cents higher per pound than last year thanks to Ethanol subsidies triggering a tripling of turkey feed that comes from corn crops.

The biggest donation - $500 - came from a gentleman who does not want to see people go without on a day meant to celebrate the nation’s bounty and good fortune. Mallory has noted it is ironic that in the San Joaquin Valley - the most fertile agricultural land in the world - that an estimated one out of every six people has hunger issues.

Mallory is working against a Nov. 18 deadline to order the turkeys to secure them in time to distribute to food closets for Thanksgiving. Typically, a number of donated turkeys will come in after that allowing the effort to meet all of the needs.

If you can assist Turkeys R Us, contact Coldwell Banker Crossroads (North and North Main Street in Manteca) at 823-8141. You can also call McNabb at 815-6754, Teunissen at 483-3365, or the second Harvest Food Bank at 239-2091.

If you have an actual turkey you’d like to donate, you can take it directly to the Second Harvest Food bank on Industrial Park Drive near the branch post office and indicate it is for Turkeys R Us. The drop-off can be done Monday through Friday before 4:30 p.m.