Employees of one of our region’s largest employers are joining forces to provide holiday meals to those in need.

Erie Insurance employees are working together to donate, pack, and distribute 3,000 holiday dinners to families in Erie County to help fight hunger this Thanksgiving.

This is the 37th annual Rick Hinman Thanksgiving Dinner Drive, a grassroots project that began with a single turkey and has grown every year since.

The group partners with Second Harvest Food Bank to distribute Thanksgiving dinners — complete with all the fixings — to dozens of agencies that provide for families in need.

“We have four shifts that we’re doing this weekend, we have about 40 to 50 people on each shift. In each of these shifts, they’re going to package 750 dinners. Then next week, we’ll have another crew that actually takes them from here and brings them to the different food pantries so that the families can pick up the dinners from there,” said Charles Spacht, Erie Insurance volunteer leader.

Erie Insurance employees have delivered more than 75,000 turkeys to families in Erie County since the program began in 1986.