The FourLeaf Turkey Drive, which the credit union describes as Long Island's largest one-day food drive, returns for its 18th year on Friday, November 20. Donations will be accepted from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at FourLeaf Federal Credit Union's main office at 899 South Oyster Bay Road in Bethpage.

The drive collects frozen turkeys, non-perishable food and monetary donations, all of it going directly to Island Harvest, the Long Island food bank that supplies Thanksgiving meals to families across Nassau and Suffolk counties.

What last year's drive collected

The 2025 drive brought in 4,767 frozen turkeys, 23,162 pounds of food and $117,244 in donations, according to FourLeaf's own accounting, and the credit union added a $50,000 donation of its own at the event. Since the drive began in 2008, it has collected nearly 60,000 turkeys and 290,000 pounds of food for Island Harvest.

The numbers land differently when set against the need. FourLeaf's announcement of last year's results cited record levels of food insecurity on Long Island, with more than 240,000 people, about one in twelve Long Islanders, struggling to put food on the table.

Where the food goes

Island Harvest distributes the donations through its network of more than 300 food pantries, soup kitchens and other hunger-relief programs across the two counties. Randi Shubin Dresner, Island Harvest's president and CEO, has said the drive's timing matters: the turkeys and food arrive in the week before Thanksgiving, when the food bank's member agencies are assembling holiday meals for the families they serve.

Linda Armyn, FourLeaf's president and CEO, has credited the drive's scale to the mix of corporate partners, local organizations and individual donors who line up each year, many of them dropping a turkey through a car window without leaving the drive-through line.

A new name on an old tradition

Longtime donors know the drive under a different banner. FourLeaf Federal Credit Union is the former Bethpage Federal Credit Union, and the turkey drive at its headquarters has been a fixture of the Long Island Thanksgiving season since 2008, well before the name change. The location has not moved: the main office sits on South Oyster Bay Road in Bethpage, and the drive runs rain or shine.

Anyone who cannot make it on November 20 can donate to Island Harvest directly at islandharvest.org. Details on the drive are at fourleaffcu.com under the community section.

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