Erie Insurance volunteers are on overdrive inside the Second Harvest Food Bank warehouse in Erie, packing up 3,000 Thanksgiving turkey dinner boxes for families in need across our region.

Among the busy bees was Luisa Gonzales, a first notice of loss representative at Erie Insurance, who understands how it feels to be on both sides of the company's long standing turkey dinner drive.  A discovery she made last year, along with Rick Hinman the former IT employee who started it all 38 years ago.

"She was back here helping me pack dinners and building the boxes and we started talking and she said I remember one year my mom got a box and it looked a lot like this," Hinman said. 

"And it dawned on us and we both just started crying," Gonzales recalled.  "It's just amazing how quickly he remembered, and I remembered that wow - his kindness and every thing that the community brought together made a difference."

And what a difference the initiative has made.  "Erie Insurance employees have donated more than $2.75 million dollars for the turkey drive through the decades.

The Thanksgiving generosity is a long tradition that's about more than the employee's wallets. They put their heart and soul into packing these boxes and they can fill 750 of them in just an hour and a half.

This year alone, that means those 3,000 turkey dinner boxes will be sent out to families through 25 different Second Harvest agencies. "And it really makes a difference during the holiday season," said Breanna Watts, development director for Erie's Second Harvest Food Bank, "because most of our clients wouldn't be able to have a family dinner without the support of the food bank and Erie Insurance.

It's support that may just change a life, just ask Luisa Gonzales.  "It created that kindness and joy inside of me to help the community and to keep pushing myself and to show an example that - a difference --we can make a difference if we all work together," she said.