This year, Burress can't make Thanksgiving donation
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Plaxico Burress
And you think the Giants miss Plaxico Burress? Were disappointed by him?
All they lost was a wide receiver. A good one, but just a wide receiver who it turns out can be replaced. But the aftermath of his accidental shooting in a Manhattan night club, an event that happened a year ago this weekend, stretches far beyond the Giants' locker room. There are consequences beyond those to which Burress was sentenced to earlier this year. While Burress spends his first Thanksgiving in prison, serving a 20-month sentence for weapons possession, there are folks about 500 miles to the south of his cell at the Oneida Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y., who had come to count on him for a decent holiday meal.
This year, they'll have to do without one.
"There's a great need," said Sylvia Lamb, manager of the Twin Canal Village Apartments, a low-income housing development in Virginia Beach where Burress spent part of his childhood and where he returned in recent years to distribute 400 turkeys and 400 hams each Thanksgiving. "There have been a lot of calls inquiring as to the availability of the turkeys this year from Mr. Burress, and of course quite a bit of disappointment as well. There are families that will not have one."
Burress grew up in a family similar to those, and in interviews during previous visits to Twin Canal that were covered by the local media he spoke about not always having any meat on the table at a time when he was supposed to be counting his blessings.
"He didn't have a very good Thanksgiving [every year when he was growing up] but he wanted to make sure that everybody else did," said Jackie Andrews, the assistant director of United In Him, a ministry in Virginia Beach that helped with the distribution of the food Burress provided. "That was one of his visions and something that he really held strongly in his heart."
Each of the last two years, Burress would travel to Virginia Beach on Thanksgiving and help deliver the food he purchased. He'd been going back for years, since his time with the Steelers, to participate in Thanksgiving-related functions that helped the community in general, appearing at different banquets or spearheading food drives. But beginning in 2007 he wanted to specifically help those at Twin Canal. There are 300 apartments and more than 2,000 residents in the complex and Burress would show up with the 400 hams and 400 turkeys, making sure each household received one of each.
That leaves an extra 100 turkeys and 100 hams.
"As people hear about things, he wanted to make sure everybody had something," Andrews said, "so he always bought a little bit more."
It would have been easy, of course, for Burress to just write a check and pay for all those birds and hams. But instead he would spend two or more hours with the residents, listening to their stories and signing autographs. After that, he would attend a step dance recital by the children of the community and spend still more time with those youngsters.
"He made it a point to not rush out," Andrews said. "That, for the kids, made more of an impact on them than the turkey. It was his time."
Lamb, who has been working at Twin Canal since 1987, recalled Burress as a youngster in the community, a budding athlete who excelled in football and basketball.
"I would converse with his mother regularly about his achievements and his goals for life after high school," Lamb said before adding, as if to note that life after high school for many of the kids in Twin Canal is a fairy tale, "I'm very much aware of the complexities of his growing up."
Still, she described Burress as a quiet boy. "Pretty much non-problematic," she said.
So when he accidentally shot himself in the leg last year, just a day after he had made his annual visit, news spread quickly through Twin Canal.
"I'm quite sure I can say that a lot of people were stunned by the events as they unfolded and somewhat shocked that this had occurred," Lamb said. "There were a lot of individuals who looked up to him, especially since he made it to the pros. Of course there is some disappointment for him, but there should be better days for him."
Not for a while. This year - and next - Burress is doing time rather than spending it with those who are less fortunate. According to Andrews, there were some overtures by his wife, Tiffany, and his brothers, to try and continue the giving even with Burress behind bars.
"There's a lot of other things going on for them," Andrews said. "They had the heart to want to try to do something, but it just wasn't possible this year."
So while Burress sits in prison, eating state-stuffed turkey, and millions here in New York will put together a leftover sandwich while watching tonight's game, and the Giants prepare for their contest against the Broncos, back in Virginia Beach there will be families without a Thanksgiving meal because of a mistake that Burress made 12 months ago.
He's paying for that crime now. But so, too are the people of Twin Canal.
"As families have need we connect them with churches in the area, but it's not as readily available as it had been just because Plaxico was there," Andrews said. "It really has made a huge impact on the families' lives."
