Vernon Rice Memorial HOLIDAY Turkey Program

Volunteers of Saint Anthony of Padua Church

We wish to thank all members of the Johns Hopkins community who participated in the Vernon Rice Memorial Holiday Turkey Program.  We far exceeded our goal of providing 100 families in need with a healthy food basket for Thanksgiving and the December holidays.  Through our partnership with Saint Anthony of Padua Church, 220 families received food baskets containing a fresh turkey and vegetables from local and free range farms.  The outpouring of generosity contributed to the health of the community and also honored the tenth anniversary of Vernon Rice’s death.

About Vernon Rice

Every day since 1976 at the end of his shift as a maintenance mechanic for the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus vehicle fleet, Vernon Rice stopped by St. Anthony of Padua Church to pick up five to  fifteen messages from people in the community who needed food, prescriptions filled, financial assistance to prevent evictions and utility shut-offs, or counseling. In 1993, after personally visiting hundreds of families each year, Vernon Rice decided to find a way to provide holiday dinners to families in difficult economic circumstances. He felt sure that Hopkins employees would be willing to donate food to those in need.

Meeting with Judy Peregoff, then director of the Johns Hopkins Human Resources Office of Faculty, Staff and Retiree Programs (FSRP), the two developed a plan to provide Butterball Turkey gift certificates to families. The certificates, good for a turkey or other food items, would be distributed in time for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. Peregoff's office would solicit donations and administer the program while Rice would provide a list of families in need.

Mr. Rice passed away on December 2, 2001. His son, Sam Rice, an HVAC technician at Hopkins, and other family members helped the former Faculty, Staff and Retiree Program maintain the partnership with church staff so that families in need received food during the holidays.

Mr. Rice worked for Hopkins for eighteen years and received the 1995 Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Community Service. A record 85 certificates were delivered the year Mr. Rice died.

For more information, please contact Brandi Monroe Payton at bmonroe6@jhu.edu or 443-997-0338.

How to Participate

Details for the 2012 Vernon Rice Memorial Holiday Turkey Program will be available in October 2012.