Turkey Giveaway Is Big Draw

More than 100 residents of Oxnard’s Colonia Village--many holding infants--squeezed into a packed meeting room Thursday evening for the tenant association’s fourth annual turkey giveaway.

Sponsored by the Colonia Village Tenant Assn., the drawing for 30 turkeys is one way the group distributed the record $2,500 it earned selling carnitas (diced pork), agua de fresa (strawberry soda) and ochata (rice milk) at this year’s California Strawberry Festival.

At least half of the tenants in the 430-unit public housing project work in the strawberry fields during the crop’s season, Elena Urbina said as she dipensed raffle tickets to late arrivals.

The mood was festive at Thursday’s meeting as association President Esther Lara began to pull tickets from a shoebox and award turkeys.

Some residents applauded as the winners received their turkeys, while losers called to Lara to shake up the box better.

Winner Teresa Gonzales said she and her husband Santos would have found some way to buy their five children a turkey if she had not won. But it would have been difficult, she said, because her husband was recently laid off from the lemon orchards.

Jess Daniel won an 18-pound turkey for his retired parents.