Magic Player Aaron Gordon Helps Sponsor the Magic and Amway Corporation's Car Trunk Turkey Dinner Distribution for Local Families in Need

ORLANDO, Fla., November 24, 2020 (Newswire.com) - ​​The Orlando Magic and Amway Corporation’s annual turkey dinner distribution had a different look and feel this year, but the impact it’s going to make on hundreds of local families will likely be greater than ever before. So many have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and are in need of some extra support. The hope the Magic and Amway have is that their participation in Monday’s event will ease up some of their stress and make Thanksgiving more enjoyable than it might otherwise have been under the current conditions.

Magic staff members, including Community Ambassador Bo Outlaw, along with volunteers from Amway and various other groups loaded up trunks with Thanksgiving food, including turkey, gravy, corn, stuffing, sweet potato and pumpkin pie, in the parking lot outside Orlando’s Northwest Neighborhood Center. Drive-thru stations were set up so that nobody receiving the food had to exit their cars.

Magic forward Aaron Gordon and District 5 Commissioner Regina Hill helped sponsor the event with large financial donations.

“This is not just special, it is a blessing, especially during perilous times like this,” Hill said. “Right now with many of them (local families) that had been working in the hospitality industry, that work in our event centers, and also in the hotel industry, they have not been working since the shutdown. Many of them are underemployed, unemployed or furloughed, so to have the Aaron Gordon Foundation and the Orlando Magic partner with my office is a dream come true.”

Assisting others and lifting their spirits is the norm for Outlaw, who has done an incredible amount of community work over the years to better people’s lives. Now more than ever, the former NBA player yearns to lend a helping hand and help people get through these remarkably tough, unprecedented times.

“This is something we’ve been doing for years, but this year it’s a little different because we are able to do it under these circumstances,” he said. “The pandemic is here hitting hard, but we are still in the community trying to give back and make sure that people are taken care of. This is really a time of need because a lot of different things are going on. Where we are at in today’s society, this is the ultimate opportunity to give back.”

This was just the latest of several Thanksgiving-related community events the Magic are involved in this year. 

On Thursday, Nov. 18, Magic players Markelle Fultz and Al-Farouq Aminu sponsored a different drive-thru turkey distribution event - 300 underserved families and senior citizens were each given a 32-pound staple food pantry box and a 30-pound produce box. 

Then on Saturday, Nov. 20, in an event sponsored by Magic center Nikola Vucevic, 165 Thanksgiving meals were distributed to low-income neighborhoods in the Osceola County School District. 

Media Contact: Trish Wingerson, [email protected]

Source: Orlando Magic