经济不景气美国人感恩节打折扣_BEC初级作文

经济不景气美国人感恩节打折扣

"I think everybody is OK with it," she said. "They understand. Everybody is in a different place than they were a year ago."

In suburban Chicago, the Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry got rid of turkey altogether. Last year, the pantry had a lottery in October to distribute 600 turkeys between almost 1,500 families.

The pantry's management has decided to give all of its families a choice between other kinds of meat — ground turkey, sliced chicken, fish sticks and hamburger patties — along with the other trappings of a Thanksgiving feast. The decision will save $16,000, money that can go to feeding the hungry for the rest of the year.

"Do we give turkeys and hams to half of the people or do we give them to none of them and put that money back in the general food budget?" said the pantry's executive director, Kathy Russell.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository is paying more for many basic items. Executive Director Kate Maehr said she recently ordered peanut butter that cost 38 percent more than just six months ago. And the increase comes at a bad time, when the economy has forced more families to resort to food pantries, she said.

Andrew Thomas, a mailroom worker for a Washington, DC, law firm, had hoped to take his two children to see his grandmother in North Carolina. But with Christmas around the corner, Thomas concluded he needed to save money.