Dan Lanning and Oregon Ducks celebrate Thanksgiving by feeding 1300+ families
Coach Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks decided to spend their Thanksgiving giving back to the community. Lanning and his players understand that Thanksgiving is about giving back to other people, and they took that seriously on Thursday.
They partnered with the Best Roofing Company of Eugene and a few local churches and spent their Thanksgiving holiday break feeding over 1300 families in need. Although Lanning and the players did not cook the meals, they did help load the trucks and deliver the food all around Eugene.
This charitable effort is an annual event in Eugene as part of an interfaith program. Patty Buss, the program director of One Hope Network, explained how everything came together.
"It all started, literally, in one church that was serving about 200 families, but as the churches began to work together really, the pastors of the churches knew each other, they said, 'Let's expand this; we can serve more families," he said.
Dan Lanning explained why they decided to help out on Thanksgiving
While Dan Lanning and his players were helping load the meals into vehicles, he was asked what got them involved.
"I was extremely impressed with the amount of support that exists in this community beyond just our football team, how many were involved to make this event so special, how many lives and families we get to impact," he said.
"For us we're always looking for opportunities to give back to the community. Our entire organization, we're so blessed to get to do what we do but we also have the ability to give back. We talk about Ducks do more and this is one of the ways we can do that."
Pancho Laloulu, an offensive lineman on the Ducks, also spoke about staying connected with the community. It was important to him because he was so far from his home, Hawaii.
"Me, growing up in Hawaii, being kind of poor, I've always been thankful for everything I get," he said. "We're thankful we can do stuff like this and give back to the community."
I'm a big faith dude, so I'm thankful to God for everything he's blessed me with. I'm thankful for my coaches, I'm thankful for my teammates, thankful for my family and I'm thankful I get to wake up for another day and just to breathe and get to do what I get to do."
Star quarterback Dillon Gabriel was among the Ducks players participating, and he also spoke about the importance of giving back.