CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it has many people in the Coastal Bend ready to give back to those who need it most.
It's been 30 years since Thomas J. Henry started his annual turkey giveaway. What started as in the Moore Plaza parking lot in Corpus Christi has now helped people all over the Coastal Bend.
"When I first started my law firm, I thought, 'You know it's so important to help people and give back.' It's something you learn as we grow up, and so I started doing it. It started spread out to here in San Diego, and Freer and Alice."
Henry says it is a great feeling to help the local communities every year.
"A lot of people don't have the resources. In some of the smaller communities, the resources are even less. So, you know, there's so many volunteers, so many people involved in these events, and it's just a great feeling to see us all come together to help people," Henry said.
Over in Mathis, at Extreme Sports and Outdoors, Valentine Castillo is doing what he can to help this Thanksgiving by taking both monetary and canned food donations for families who need who need a little more help this holiday season.
"A lot of people don't just automatically come out and say 'Hey, we can't afford this.' One of the things we do is that we accept the donations. So, a hundred percent of the donations go to the families," Castillo said.
This will be Castillo's second year accepting donations for the Mathis community. Last year, his business was able to help three families in need of food for the holidays. He says this year, he hopes to grow that number.
"We try to make it bigger and better, not for us, but to be able to help the community. We try to give back. Our community has been very supportive of our business in the past year, so as we grow, we actually give back to our community," he said.