STCU donates $2,500 to Kootenai County food nonprofit Turkeys & More

A $2,500 check from STCU gave Turkeys & More another lift as the Kootenai County nonprofit keeps building toward its next holiday turkey drive, months before the Thanksgiving rush. For an organization that lives on donations and volunteers, that kind of recurring local support helps turn a small presentation into food on family tables across North Idaho.

Turkeys & More accepted the donation with board member Mayte Eriksson and treasurer Sallie Smith on hand, alongside STCU Community Impact Specialist Erica Swenson and Community Impact Manager Kristen Piscopo. The nonprofit says it is based in Kootenai County and has served North Idaho since 2017, when former Kootenai County Commissioner Evalyn Adams started the effort. It became its own 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2022 and says it has since expanded turkey donations to 21 other food-relief organizations in the region.

That broader reach is part of why a $2,500 gift matters. Turkeys & More has said it uses community fundraising to provide turkeys and food aid for local families in need, and its annual goals show how quickly those dollars get put to work. In 2024, the group said it had raised about $50,000 toward a $72,000 goal to provide Thanksgiving meals for vulnerable residents in Kootenai County. That same season, volunteers handed out about 800 turkeys at a drive-thru event at Unity Church and distributed about 1,200 more to food banks and social-service agencies around the county.

The scale has continued to grow. A later Kootenai Electric Cooperative release said Turkeys & More had provided more than 18,000 turkeys and raised $480,000 since it began, serving more than 100,000 residents. It also said the group distributed 2,250 turkeys in 2025 alone, feeding about 11,500 community members. Those numbers show why early gifts from local institutions can matter so much: the nonprofit has to line up birds, volunteers, and distribution plans well before holiday demand peaks.

STCU says its community giving is aimed at stability and wellbeing, especially for youth and families, and the credit union also gives employees 16 hours of paid time off each year for volunteer work. In practice, that makes donations like this one part of a larger pattern of local corporate support that keeps a seasonal food effort moving from one year to the next. For Turkeys & More, the $2,500 check is not just a photo opportunity. It is part of the groundwork that helps the county’s Thanksgiving safety net hold together when families need it most.