Good to Know Turkey Fry Guys

Paul Reiser and Jeff Beimfohr talk with the Turkey Fry Guys about their business and its mission.

What is KTBS: Good to Know Shreveport-Bossier?

KTBS Podcasting and the Committee of 100 present Good to Know Shreveport-Bossier, a podcast series showcasing the good things happening in our area. We’ll go in-depth about economic development, community growth and other topics about initiatives that are having a positive impact in our community. We’ll have new episodes every other Wednesday. You can find the KTBS Good to Know podcast wherever you listen to podcasting. Or go to KTBS.com or KTBS Now on your streaming device to see the full interview.

Hello again, everybody.

Welcome to another edition of Good to Know
Shreveport Bossier.

This is a podcast.

We showcase all the good things
happening around our community.

My name's Jeff by NPR. I'm your host.

This is a guy we have to have.

His name is Paul Reiser. He's my co-host.

He used to own a whole bunch of sonics,
so he's really a rich dude.

It's a comedy of the member
of the Committee of 100.

So every podcast

we focus on topics and initiatives
that do have positive impacts around town.

We have new episodes available
every other Wednesday,

and you can find good show
wherever you listen to your podcast.

We got a fun show today, so Paul,
take it away.

Well, thank you, Jeff.
He actually was nice to me today.

I appreciate it.
I'm not feeling that good.

So this is
one of my favorite kind of guest on today.

Very inspirational to me
because this is an example

of a guy who saw a need
and wanted to do something about it.

And this through creativity and initiative
and hard work, just went out

and created this organization
that has raised a ton of money.

So it's really exciting.
I love this kind of story.

Okay,
Are we going to actually get to the name?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we'll get there.

So we have

Cory Kraft.

Kraft, Kraft, Kraft.

So Cory Kraft, he is the executive
director of You're Gonna Love This.

Jeff the Turkey
Fry guys and Mark Harrison.

I'm one of the guys.

I'm. I'm trying to refrain,
but go ahead, though.

So really this is an inspirational
and cool story and you guys are fun.

So I really want to hear one now, explain
to everybody and Jeff especially,

what is the turkey fry guy?

This is a well, turkey for our guys
is is a is a fallacy.

Three that we started to
to help a couple of things.

One, bring a large group of people
together in our community,

have a good time fry in turkeys
and also bring a lot of awareness

to an organization
that's in need in our in our community.

And so after years of thinking
and trying to put it together,

I had a I had

a focus group at my house like, hey,
we want to I want to finally do this.

We're coming out of COVID.

I think people really want to

be interested in getting back out
and doing some fun things.

And so

your way, What's the organization
that you say is in need?

We're doing it for a gingerbread house.

Gingerbread house. Okay.

Whenever I was kind of floating this idea
of running a large amount of turkeys

in the community to raise awareness
and a bunch of money for organization

to need gingerbread house kept going
and upping topic of conversation.

So so it kind of kept playing with it,
kept playing with it.

And then also my wife gets called to do

grand jury for six months. So

during that

time of her grand jury, she was
she had heard a couple of cases

through the grand jury cases
that come out of the gingerbread house.

And, you know,
and couple of them were pretty severe.

And she actually had to go seek
some counseling to get over some of those.

And so it was just
she came to me and said that, you know,

I think the gingerbread house is

what we need to do, focus on the turkey
is really what the gingerbread house does.

Gingerbread House is a children's
advocacy center here in our community.

They actually cover nine
parishes in north Louisiana.

I mean, they're one one,
if not the biggest in in Louisiana,

you know, abuse on kids,
sexual abuse, trafficking.

So they
this is all inspired by your wife's

appearance on the grand jury
you were thinking about.

We were thinking about it prior.

But I think what what sealed the deal
to move towards the gingerbread house

to bring more awareness to them was

the experience she had. And

you know, I knew of the gingerbread house,

but I really didn't know what the
what all they did on their every day.

Leanne And once

we met with Jessica,
the CEO of the gingerbread house,

we got a really behind the scenes

look of what they do, the involvement
they are in the community with the kids.

Do they see

it would just seem like a no brainer

to to help provide resources
for the kids that they see.

So, Mark, how'd you get involved?

I got involved because that one meeting
he had at his house,

he said, just come to this deal
for the gingerbread house.

And at the time I knew absolutely nothing
about the gingerbread house.

When Jessica from the gingerbread house

got up and spoke
and then Sheriff Prater spoke,

and then they started giving
all these numbers just in north Louisiana,

of all the kids that are not getting help,

it's phenomenal.

And so I'm sitting there listening
all that.

I went, I'm on board.

I'll do anything I can to
help. Hey, do me.

I'm interrupt for a second.

You log, would you cut your mikes off
upstairs, please?

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right. Look at that part out. Yeah.

So I think what really neat thing to me
is that you guys aren't

you don't have a background
in the gingerbread ash.

You're not social workers by trade.

You're guys with businesses,
you're in the business community.

So tell us a little bit about what you do
and then I want to talk about

you've done this one time
and it was a huge success.

So how did a couple of guys just like,
you know, turkeys, that's it.

That's the answer.

And yet you're so loved by they hate that,

especially when they look at Jeff
and I out of turkeys comes to mind.

But so what do you do for a living
besides fried hundreds of turkeys?

Well, my my day job is is working at home
federal bank and branch manager

out of Nashville road location.

So you know I've been in banking

for about roughly 15 years.

Five of it's been my home federal.

So that's what that's what I do
my daytime and my day job.

And then at night is full
time with Turkey.

Yeah. How about you?

I own House of carpets and lighting here.

It's been around here since 1958,
so it's been around a long time.

So I do that.

And then the frying came to be
because we were trying to figure out

how do these fryers and
how to pump them out in a timely manner.

So we called Robert Meyers over in Homer,

who bills all these turkey
fryers ships all over the world.

And anyway, so maybe fryer force.

So to make it happen,
you fry turkey, then what?

What do you do with them? So

the concept of go ahead

going into
this was to create a big production home

from turkeys, one,

you know, to do

so people can drop by an event,
see something like,

Oh my God, what in the world
is going on out there in Turkey?

I'm sorry I didn't interrupt.

You do it at like fairs
or just our own events.

We have one event each year in the past
when we had was last year.

So we had the weekend before Thanksgiving.

We had a we had a party the night before.

We got to gobble, gobble, which, you know,

you know,
people bought tickets and came to event.

We had a really nice silent auction
set up with a band.

And in the silent auction, a lot of our
local sports athletes, musicians

actually,

any sports got in this area
and they found out that what we're doing

and I personally contributed
to the silent auction

at which we raised a lot of money
with that.

You know, you can go from that Brandon
Wilson back Prescott dead and why

Kix Brooks then kicked in some stuff

so this this is
this has gotten big in a hurry.

It's very interesting to you
that at one time when you said for years

you thought about it,
I wanted to do something,

How did you come up with the turkey idea

and how did you go from
let's try some turkeys to Dak Prescott?

Is is was giving us
his jersey to auction off it

It went from
you know, I start way back when my brother

started doing this out of his garage
with some friends,

having some adult beverages

during the two nights
before Thanksgiving out of his garage.

And they went from doing as a fun hobby,
doing 25

turkeys to 201 time.

Then, you know, as he got busy in life
running help, running

a Piggly Wiggly corporation, you know,
you just just couldn't do it no more.

That was from Turkey.

My brother can do it.

So what was he doing? 25 to 200 turkeys.

People just bring them to the house.

They would just tell
and they would do them.

And they would drop out some cash
and just take the cash, the local

St Jude's or whatnot.

That makes money. Just give the cash away.

So I got the idea from him
and I want to do it.

And I just was mulling over for years
and years and years.

And I like the Thanksgiving side of it
because Thanksgiving has always

been very important to me
and my family love that time of year,

you know, the giving part. And so

I want
to do it where people can be involved.

People
like to give away turkeys at Thanksgiving.

So the concept idea was have people,

you know, maybe sponsor some birds
by some birds for people.

Organizations are in need and like,

no pun intended, you'd like jokes.

You know, you can work with one.

So yes you can of

with what we do, you kind of kill
two birds with one stone, right?

Yeah.

You can sponsor a bird,

you can go to someone in need
or you could take it for yourself,

or you can donate or designate
an organization for it to go to.

The bird goes to somebody in need.

The monetary side
goes helps gingerbread house.

So that's the neat thing about this

and in and also bringing a community
together for one event say out there

and watch a heck of a production of rain

last year 500,000 birds this year

Wow So people just like you to watch you
fry the birds, huh?

Yeah, It's like a tailgating event.

We love tailgating themselves. Right.

So, like football games,
you come on their tailgate,

help us out for our 2 hours
to kind of explain the weekend.

I'm sorry, but you got to live with that.

But you got it.

So it's a two day event, right?
It is just.

We're going to fry turkeys.
Come pick them up.

It's an event. And then you can tell us

at the end of this
how much you actually raised last year.

What's the plan for this year?

So it is a two day event of Friday night.

We have a party,
we call it the global level.

Yeah, bring a little

have a little fun with to name
this year is at house of corporate

lighting
where we actually do the fry and it

you know what kind of concept we kind of

want to see this year is have for people
say is the actual 4 hours out there.

Last year we had it at another location

and so this year we kind of bring it all
into one so people can see everything

that will have another very,
very pumped up side at auction this year

from some special people and some items

from local businesses in town
have a nice band.

The state of Louisiana
has donated the seafood to the event.

They love what we were doing.
Yeah. You do seafood? Yes.

So for the for the party that night to get
non guests are involved in it.

Yeah yes the Louisiana seafood

people Foundation kicked in that

and then

Saturday wake up that morning
and this is frota you know

we've been going you know going about 8:00
that morning to about five at night.

People come and go.
You see a lot of colors

just pulling through and picking up,
picking up turkeys.

So, Mark, you donated your air,
your store, I guess you shut them down.

Yeah, I'll shut down all that Saturday.

And we just allowed all this
to take place.

It's easy to drive through
and do everything.

And then we what I did
was I bought all the fryers for the deal.

We bought six rods last
year. We're ed and four more.

Two. It's all out.

Tim Fryers
that can fry 18 turkeys at a time.

So we'll do 180 turkeys every hour.

That's a big fryer.

I've got some fryer experience.

Ten, ten birds in each fryer.

18 birds in each fryer.

Come on. Yeah, we have ten fryers.

We have ten fryer, 180.

And our hundred 80 of our Holy cow.

So we'll be popping it out with people.

Just sit there.

You will let them drip dry
and then wrap them up.

Cellophane and foil box.

So I mean, boom,
everybody take off the box.

So these people just drive through
and pick up their bird or party or.

Yeah, we have some people
who had designated times to

they can come when they come
pick them up organization say, hey,

you know, your birds will be ready at 11
that morning.

They'll come and pick them up.

People who sponsor birds will say,

you know, I got so, so, so, so I want to
come on this time frame.

So we kind of have an idea how many birds
we will need to have ready there

in that time frame. So they just come in.

We put them in there.

Be glad to give you an example
like the be our if you're in town,

they're going to buy somewhere between 60
and 100 turkeys and they will designate,

they tell everybody, you can go
pick your turkey up at house carpet.

So then they'll send their
we got a list of everybody's supposed

get a bird
and how many birds that will go out.

So we just check off
everybody and we keep a constant

running

total who's got what what mean
are the different prices

for these birds or does everybody pay
the same price as that work?

Everybody pays the same price, Right.

Did you tell us
what about to get to $70 a bird

and if you go to our website Turkey
for our guys dot com,

you can click on that they would sponsor
donate a bird and it'll talk you

right through

how different packages from a single bird
all the way up to 25 bird package

so if I come just can I just drive through
without a reservation and pick up a bird

or do I get a call in advance
or how does that work?

You're going to need to call in advance
or get online and buy in advance because

they're going fast.

There's not going to be

a opportunity for drive up and get one
the day of kind of snooty, if you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a I wish we could,
but you know, that's okay.

But you know, we got to, we got to get
sponsors for all these birds.

We said it.

When you say sponsors for the birds,
they just buy the bird

or they give you a amount of money to say
we were a sponsor of the bird

and then buy the bird.

Anyway, other people
buy the bird other over.

Well, when I say sponsor bird,
you know, go back to back to be

if you know
they're going to buy roughly 60 birds

so their sponsor
bird to give to somebody else.

You know we have another gentleman
he buys he he bought 50 birds.

Wow. You know he is so he just told us.

He said, I'm sponsoring 50 birds.

Yeah, I know.

The money
is going to go to the gingerbread house.

So I want these birds

picked organizations of your choosing,
who you want them to go to.

And another neat story
on that. Last year, this is

the same gentleman

who I'm talking about, his birds
that he bought last year.

He's I don't know, do these birds
but I know you trust your

to put them in good hands.

And so we got the thinking and so we took

two barsa fire stations

and took the rest over to Barksdale
Air Force Base.

It gave to the and we called it
told him that it

I mean, he just said,
I am in as long as y'all want it.

He said he said,
I never felt so good about

something during the holiday season
that that, you know,

his money went to the gingerbread house
and birds went to some somebody in need.

And I've never I've never heard of
anything like this before.

It's pretty cool.

You guys feel pretty good
about coming up with this concept.

It's really created it.

It was phenomenal last year.

And, you know, with all the stuff that we
donate, a lot of people are just saying,

Look, here's 2000.

I wanted to go to this church
for all their anybody they need,

you know, to give it to for a lot of
the church has got a lot of turkeys

last year from us.
Yeah it's a really cool idea.

So there's a big party the Friday
before the week before Thanksgiving.

That is correct.

The 17th. So November 17th is the auction.

The turkey will be injecting
all the turkeys.

I'm ready to go for Saturday morning
and then Saturday morning,

the 18th,
it will start around the turkeys.

So from about this year, 2023,
if you're listening to this next year,

just check the website.

What's that website

say turkey for our guys
dot com for our guys dot com and generally

the plan is the weekend
before Thanksgiving

you're going to have a party on Friday
and cook those turkeys on Saturday.

That is correct.

That's very good. We yes.

And just from that perspective,
I mean when we say the party we have,

you got Glazers, you got Eagle,
you've got a company called Bushwhackers.

They're donating
a lot of the beer and spirits.

So do people pay to come to the party
to buy a ticket to get in the party?

They buy a ticket, Yes.

So then that party, you get seafood
and beer and bottled water and iced tea

for and for me, Yes.

I'm the Coca-Cola.

I drink the hard stuff and we'll have
some beef, will have either,

you know, some red meat, some turkey,
whatever there is little give away.

So yeah, yeah.

So it's a

getting back
to the gingerbread house here.

How much did you wind up
donating to right now?

So our first year we were able
to write them a check for $80,000.

Our first
first year, 18,008 zero is pretty amazing.

And so we want to

go go above 100 this year.

The gingerbread house

lost some funding this year,

but the state that they usually get and

no fault of our our delegation up here,
just something that the governor decided

to write out and and so we want to
hopefully we can raise enough to help help

soften the blow to their budget this year
and keep them funded the best we can.

And we got a new governor coming.

So maybe this stuff will change.

We've been told that he's going to he's
going to make up for it.

So this the gingerbread house,
especially through your wife,

been on the grand jury,
It really touched your heart

as as a very effective organization
for for helping these kids.

Is it right?

The money is really well taken care of.

There it is.

You know, speaking with Jessica
and gingerbread house, who runs it?

The CEO.

And she is so powerful.

I mean, she is if you ever get a chance
to meet her, go hear her speak.

I encourage everybody to make she

she's own it.

She's very passionate about it.

And I can we are so lucky
to have our leadership there.

You said, Mark, you really were touched
when she spoke that when she spoke, Chef

Prater spoke, you know, and just hearing
all the things that they go through,

mainly what the kids go through, you know,
and they have forensic interviewers

that are able to get the children
to relax more

than having a uniform
police officer there.

And they open up.

And so their conviction rates
have gone way up.

And that's good, you know, because of what
the gingerbread house does.

And sure, Prater can tell you in detail

how big of an impact
it is for them to convict these guys.

Yeah.

I mean, do they share with you
the details of some of these cases?

I mean, without names and all that stuff,

it just some of the things that happened
to these kids, it kind of did to you.

I mean, we hear different stories.

You know, you could
I don't know what you can say.

Yeah. Just don't give me details. Yeah.

I just wondered if that was. Yes.

So we've heard enough stories.

Yeah, I mean, it would.

It would be terrible
if it didn't touch everyone's heart.

Right. And to what these kids go through.

And another thing
about a gingerbread house to,

you know, once I get the conviction
right on conviction on these kids,

you know, there's continued
care afterwards for these kids.

They went through
so much trauma and to see,

you know, just it's not over with.

Once the convictions are with, you know,
the case is closed, it's going on.

I mean, they're there with the families

continuously after
to make sure that they get there, continue

to get the care
they need to get over the tragedy.

In a way, it's like going through.

So, I mean, it's just

they'll take care of them up
through up to 18 years old, up to 18.

And how how
what's the youngest do they tell you?

Like, what's the youngest?

These kids, the earliest are 33 three.

Yeah.

And the largest
majority of the cases are by someone

they know or a family member
that all this goes on.

It's awful.

It is awful.

When you think about the trauma
that your wife experienced,

hearing about it, the jury can begin to
I mean, she needed counseling and so forth

just because it was so traumatic
hearing about it

and just can't even imagine
living through it for these kids.

And what a great organization to help them
through that, because it's not just, oh,

we put the abuser in jail.

Now, this child needs a lot of care
to grow through that.

Yeah.

And that's what was more, you know, really
touching to me is is is the aftercare

about it, you know, because, you know,
we all had dreams when we were kids, too.

You know, I was going to be a major League
Baseball player, you know, in the NBA.

But that's exactly so I was going to
hammered in the have never made it.

Have you ever watched your dream

inside and to have in the have to care

to still continue to give them
you know this horrible experience

they went through this big hurdle

that they had to get through in life
and you know, just continue on that.

You know, you still follow
your dreams and be impactful and

you still still have
a really good productive in life.

So that that part of it behind the scenes
was was very, very touching for me, too,

as well.

Well, before you knew

you were going to do turkeys
to raise money, before you knew

you were going to give the money
to gingerbread house,

your early idea of the whole concept
was something to help kids always.

Why was that your early, early thought?

Because our our next generation,

you know, they're our next educators.

You know, they're our next,
you know, spiritual leaders.

They're our next people.

You to run our our community.

You look at it the same way I do.

If I was going to do anything for anyone,
it would be the children, because they're

the ones that have the least opportunity
to get the help that they need.

How many folks are in your organization
and help you guys do well with We

we have a core
we have a core group of about

seven or eight of us.

You know, that's kind of year round. Yeah.

And another thing is the day at Fry,

we'll have we have

some businesses here in town
who give the community, give back events

and so they they've reached out to us
and say, hey, we're going to send

some of our staff down.

We met about it so we can send a team down
to help you guys that day for

just tell us what to do back in boxes
if it's passing out,

you know, help keep pick up or whatever
we need to do.

Okay.

So a lot of

there are some businesses
that are coming home

like they did last year with some churches
who sent some beacons to help

and with the process
during the day of the fry.

And so we're seeing more companies
reaching out to us this year to send their

staff who like to get involved
in community, organize events.

So this is going to grow.

I mean, I mean, you said you gave
$80, 80,000 the first year.

Your goal is 100,000.

Where would what's the ceiling on this?

There's no ceiling.

I don't think you I don't think you

there's a ceiling
don't only raise enough money

to fund such an organization
like gingerbread house.

Yeah.

They cover nine parishes.

It's just not in in
how do you get the word out to everybody

is you just word a word of mouth with it's
word of mouth.

We have a we have a great social media
platform, which is turkey frog turkey

for our guys dot com who Kenny Rogers
who's our director with that platform.

She she does a phenomenal job
there on all the social media platforms.

We have a website in Turkey for our guys
dot com and it's and it's

you guys who's giving us the platform
committee of 100.

You know it's really honored

we all guys to to give us a microphone
and a camera today to talk about it

because a lot of people

a lot of people out there like me
I knew the name Gingerbread house.

Yeah.

I had no idea what it did was
what I was involved in there every day.

God. Well, you guys do it.

We're just about out of time here.

We get this really cool idea.

It. It
finally found a good one to bring in here,

but this
is especially this so inspirational.

And I just wanted to ask,
how do you get the turkey?

When I drive through?

If I order a turkey, then what's
it going to look like when I get it?

Is it it says in a box,
it's wrapped in foil and in a box.

Can I refrigerate that?

It's good
for seven days on refrigeration. Yes.

No. And I would

I would take a stick in the freezer
if you wanted to if you were unsure.

They pull it out a windy keep it
you have the directions are exactly

what you mean the directions
perfect Thursday everything.

So if you
if you do exactly what the directions

have, it's going to be
like what you cook it.

That is phenomenal.

So we still got some birds.

We're looking for sponsors
for a few more birds.

I encourage people
if they want to get involved, to reach out

to us, go to Turkey for our guys dot com,
our social media.

You can reach out to us that way.

There's a phone number to call as well.

No help

and we can always use to help
get it a bigger to the label.

GOBBLE That sounds like it's going to be a
that's a fun party.

That's a fun party.

And I know a guy that used to run
some hamburger restaurants.

Maybe he can figure out a way
to help you all.

Yeah, maybe. Right.

I think we're having fried turkey
for Thanksgiving.

That's going to wrap it up.

Corey Kraft, Mark Harrison,
incredible story.

Really innovative, really creative fun,

but going to good cause from your hearts.

It's really terrific stuff.

Thank you all for doing that. Thank you.

To maybe 100 again and you guys, it's
our pleasure, believe me.

All right.

That's going to do it for us.
We appreciate you being here.

And you can find good to know wherever
you listen to your major podcasts.

Have a good one. Everybody.