Tyler Perry Donates 5,000 Meals to Atlanta Families at Thanksgiving Event

Tyler Perry
Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

The producer also handed out grocery store gift cards.

Tyler Perry is giving back ahead of Thanksgiving. On Sunday, the 51-year-old producer donated meals to 5,000 families in Atlanta, Georgia, ET has learned. Both non-perishables and gift cards to the local supermarket, Kroger, were handed out at the drive-thru event, which was held at Tyler Perry Studios.

In addition to maintaining distance through cars, the event enforced other COVID-19 precautions, including having those that were handing out food wear protective gear,  local channel WSB reports.

The local channel additionally noted that people slept in their cars to get one of the boxes of food and one of the gift cards.

Tyler Perry Studios
Tyler Perry Studios

Perry is frequently charitable. Back in July, he gave 1,000 Atlanta residents $50 gift cards to Kroger to help out amid the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, Perry opted to turn his Atlanta studio into a quarantine bubble back in June, a decision that allowed many people to keep working, despite the pandemic.

"I realized that I had several hundred employees. Some of them are former prisoners who were in prison for 10 and 20 years, and they’re just great people who are so grateful to have this second-chance opportunity," he recently told WSJ. Magazine. "And they’ve bought houses and cars, and their lives have changed."

"So I found myself in a position of, 'OK, what are you going to do? I’m fortunate enough to go sit and wait this thing out for a vaccine for a year and a half. But what about them? What about their kids?'" he added.

On top of Perry's help amid the pandemic, he paid for Rayshard Brooks' funeral, as well as his four children's college education, after Brooks was fatally shot by police. 

The actor and producer previously footed grocery bills for high-risk and senior residents in New Orleans and Atlanta. Perry also donated a van to an Atlanta-area women's shelter.

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