Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025 | 2 a.m.
Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
Thanksgiving came early for dozens of families at an east Las Vegas elementary school.
Through generous donations and coordinated community efforts, volunteers last week distributed food baskets to 51 families at Walter V. Long Elementary School. Each basket contained enough food to help them celebrate today and carry them through the extended holiday season ahead.
A mother named Jessica said she wasn’t expecting to be chosen for a donation. A volunteer helped her load the food and other provisions for her family of five into her car as she buckled in her energetic son, a Long pre-kindergarten student, after picking him up from school.
She said that during these times of widespread economic challenges, the donation was appreciated. “I’m a stay-at-home mom,” said Jessica, who did not want to give her last name. “Times are different. Everything’s more expensive.”
Commercial real estate professionals with the Southern Nevada chapter of the National Association of Industrial & Office Properties, or NAIOP, helped make the Nov. 21 giveaway possible.
Megan McInerney, the chair of NAIOP Southern Nevada’s community service committee and a broker at Colliers, said the food drive had grown, especially in recent years. Last year, the real estate agents helped feed 35 families, she said.
Long Elementary is situated in a Las Vegas neighborhood where more than a quarter of children live in poverty, according to census data.
“There’s no shortage of families that need the support,” McInerney said. “I think the school could have identified more.”
NAIOP Southern Nevada has worked with Communities in Schools, a family and student support nonprofit embedded in several Clark County School District campuses, for 15 years on its holiday food drives.
Communities in Schools employees at Long identified some families that could use the assistance. Then an army of real estate agents set out to secure sponsors, write shopping lists, shop, collect, sort, pack and deliver baskets. They brought them to the school and hauled them out to grateful families’ cars in wagons after school, or, if the families lived within about a mile, to their doors.
The cafeteria tables in the Long multipurpose room overflowed with laundry baskets filled with shelf-stable.
Thanksgiving fare, utensils, games and festive fall decor, plus tote bags stuffed with groceries to go beyond Turkey Day — staples like pasta, oatmeal and canned vegetables, and fun, kid-friendly offerings like fruit cups and cookie mixes. Another table had stacks of family-sized pumpkin pies nested in roasting pans.
Perishables, such as frozen turkeys and fresh produce, weren’t part of the food drive but could be purchased with the gift cards that came with the bundles — $100 for every four people in the household.
NAIOP Southern Nevada’s community service group has donation drives throughout the year of food, clothing, hygiene products, school supplies and toys for nonprofits and schools around the valley.
“We want to make a real impact,” said Deshone Brunswick, director of operations at SVN The Equity Group and the community service vice chair. “This has allowed us to grow each and every year.”
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