With the Northern Wasatch Association of Realtors’ donation of 22 turkeys — in addition to a check for $3,000 — on Monday morning, the Lantern House sat at 196 turkeys donated.

Stacey Gallegos, community outreach director for the Lantern House, praised the Northern Wasatch Association of Realtors for its dedication and consistency.

“These guys help us every year — not only with this donation — but they do other things throughout the year for us,” she said. “It’s a great collaboration that we have with the Have a Heart Foundation.”

Kelsey Mount, 2025 chairperson of the community outreach committee for the Northern Wasatch Association of Realtors, told the Standard-Examiner they have spent the year fundraising.

“We fundraise throughout the year and we had an event back in September that we raised the money for and that’s where the money came from for donations,” she said. “We also raised funds from our committee and the realtors in our industry and our community to donate the additional turkeys that we brought in.”

She said it was heartwarming to be able to contribute to the Lantern House.

“It gives you such a good feeling to give back to people, especially our community,” she said.

The donations come at an especially critical time. Gallegos noted that they’ve seen a 46% rise in homelessness — which has seen a sharp rise among people 65 and older — and that the shelter is filled to its 330 capacity each night.

Gallegos said these types of donations are important throughout the year — not just around the holidays.

“Our soup kitchen runs strictly off of donations and that’s how we prepare three meals per day for the population in our community that’s homeless,” she said. “It’s not even necessarily just homeless — people in the community can come and eat with us anytime. We’re in such an area where sometimes people are meeting their rents, but food insecurities are still out there and it’s huge right now.”

She said charity in the form of food donations, monetary donations and supply donations such as hygiene products are in demand all year long and can be dropped off directly to the Lantern House Monday-Friday at the loading dock of the organization’s soup kitchen from 7 a.m.-6 p.m.