LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers’ community work kept rolling last weekend in the foothills. On Saturday, Nov. 8, the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation teamed up with longtime partner Brotherhood Crusade to stage a Thanksgiving grab-and-go turkey drive-thru at Loma Alta Park in Altadena. The timing mattered. Families in Altadena and Pasadena were still feeling the effects of the Eaton and Palisades fires, and LADF chose the first county park to reopen after the damage as the place to start the holiday support.
From 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., cars pulled into the park and left with everything needed to make a real Thanksgiving meal. The event served 750 families. Each household received a turkey, traditional fixings, gift cards, and basic essentials. It was open to the public and run on a first-come, first-served basis, which kept the line moving and made it easy for fire-impacted residents to take part. Former Dodgers like Ken Landreaux were on hand to pass out the goodies to those who came by.
This drive-thru also built on the Dodgers Dreamfields work the Foundation unveiled at Loma Alta Park earlier in the fall. Those two new fields and the upgraded facilities were part of the larger wildfire recovery effort, and Saturday’s event showed LADF returning to the same neighborhood to keep helping. Since January, LADF’s wildfire relief has included 625,000 essential items, 4,200 education resources, 1.5 million meals, and support for rebuilding the Palisades YMCA. Saturday’s distribution fit neatly into that pattern of showing up more than once.
LADF CEO Nichol Whiteman and Brotherhood Crusade President and CEO Charisse Bremond Weaver were listed to attend, underscoring how close the two organizations have become on food-security work. Brotherhood Crusade has received more than $750,000 in LADF grant funding to address hunger across Los Angeles, so putting them on site in Altadena for the first of two holiday turkey events this season made sense. The second drive, in South Los Angeles later this month, will continue the push.
For Dodgers fans who follow the Foundation’s work, this was another example of the club acting quickly after a local crisis and staying present long after the headlines moved on. The team and its foundation had already united civic partners, local groups, and other sports organizations right after the fires. Coming back to Loma Alta Park with holiday groceries showed that the relief effort was not just about rebuilding fields but about making sure families could sit down to Thanksgiving together in a tough year.
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