Turkey Takes Flight Delivers to Immokalee Regional Airport

The rugged old DC-3 flew missions in World War II. After that, it ferried lifesaving food and supplies in the Berlin Airlift. On Saturday, the DC-3 for Turkeys Take Flight will roar aloft for yet another humanitarian mission. It will deliver some 250 turkeys to the Immokalee Regional Airport, where they will be distributed to the neediest families served by Redlands Christian Migrant Association.

“Without this, they wouldn’t be able to purchase a Thanksgiving dinner,” said Zulaika Quintero, director of RCMA’s Immokalee Community School, where 70 families will receive vouchers for turkeys. Other vouchers will go to families served by RCMA’s local child-care operations.

The DC-3 leave Jetscape FBO at Fort Lauderdale International Airport and will be preceded by four smaller planes carrying volunteers from W Aviation at Fort Lauderdale Executive, where Turkeys Take Flight is based. Most of the volunteers are members of the Rotary Club of Downtown Fort Lauderdale, a sponsor of the event, along with Flightline Drug Testing, Publix and Florida Air Cargo.

“We’re really trying to give back and help the migrant families, who have worked hard all year to provide us with fresh produce,” said Tom Powers of Flightline, organizer of this year’s delivery.

The planes’ arrivals and distribution of the turkeys are open to the media, but not to the public.

For Turkeys Take Flight, this is the third annual delivery of Thanksgiving feasts to low-income Immokalee families. A recent addition to the tradition – courtesy of the Immokalee Fire Department and the Collier County Airport Authority – has been an honorary water arc sprayed from fire trucks.