Greater Sudbury man unintentionally creates donation drive for turkey dinners

After JP Brosseau posted that he wanted to provide turkey dinners for about two dozen needy families, he has been overwhelmed with messages from people seeking help.

Brosseau, who is from the Greater Sudbury community of Chelmsford, is working to raise more money to help people who have been contacting him.

It started with a Facebook post Dec. 2. Brosseau said he wanted to give 25 needy families each a frozen turkey, a bag of potatoes, a box of stuffing, a bag of carrots, one turnip and a can of cranberry sauce.

All were purchased with his own money.

“It just blew (up,)” he said.

“There were just so many people that needed it. My phone is blowing up. It’s crazy.”

Happily, some of the messages were also from people wanting to help. Brosseau estimates about $6,000 has come in, while others have donated food.

Poulin Potatoes donated 40, 10-pound bags of russet potatoes worth more than $300.

“As prices go up for families we do like to support the best way we can,” said Danika Poulin, assistant office manager.

“We are a very warm family and being a family-owned business for five generations, we know how hard it could be to purchase things nowadays. We do like to give as much as we can.”

Brosseau has already handed out 80 of his turkey meal packages, but the requests just keep coming. He said he buys 20 at a time.

TWENTY TURKEYS AT A TIME

“I have enough room to keep 20 turkeys at a time and then the other stuff I just have in my backroom,” he said.

“That’s how I got to do it because I only have so much room.”

He estimates that with all the donations, he should be able to help about 200 families this Holiday season.

Brosseau’s giving spirit started last spring when he built an entrance stand to raffle off for a local charity. After losing two close family members recently, he wanted to honour them with another charitable initiative.

“A lot of this is for my daughter (Madison) and my uncle (Ray),” he said.

“My uncle was a very generous person. He did without to make sure everybody else had stuff. He’d make sure you had stuff and he didn’t care about himself and he was a big inspiration in my life.”

Brosseau is hoping to make this a yearly effort. And he said his uncle would be very proud of his altruistic efforts to help others.