It’s a frigid morning, the first after a week of welcomed warmth, and NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson is loading turkeys and toys into car trunks at a Detroit church.
Hundreds of cars lined the parking lot of Second Ebenezer Church on Saturday morning, waiting to be loaded up with nearly 50 pounds of goods including nonperishable foods, personal care items, children’s books, turkeys and hams. The giveaway, hosted by General Motors and Johnson, is part of Johnson’s Holiday Hope program, now in its eighth year.
A starstruck female driver parks her car at the head of the line, the trunk open and ready to be loaded up by Johnson, and rolls down her window, “You’re here!”
“I told y'all I’d be here, baby,” responds Johnson, who hails from Lansing.
For two hours, the parking lot falls into a rhythm of volunteers calling out for items, the sounds of trunks slamming shut, and folks saying, “God bless you.” Drivers look at Johnson in awe and disbelief as he waves them along the assembly line and touches the same car seats and handles they touch on a daily basis.
“Everybody should be able to enjoy the holidays, to be able to feed their families and sometimes because it is tough, we want to step in and make sure that they can have a good Thanksgiving and hopefully as well as Christmas,” Johnson said. “A lot of times it's not even their fault that they're hurting, so we just want to make sure that we bless families at this time of need. And my heart feels so good to be home.”
Need is especially dire this year, said Bishop Edgar Vann of Second Ebenezer Church, as families are struggling to stay afloat amid increasing food costs and stagnant wages. The Second Ebenezer Church facilitated the distribution of vouchers for Saturday’s drive that helped organizers prepare for the flood of responses.
