The 44th Annual KDKA-TV Turkey Fund kicked off Sept. 24, and every Wednesday from now until Thanksgiving, we're going to share stories with you about why your donations to the Turkey Fund are so important.

"Folks in the community are struggling to put food on the table on a regular basis," said Charla Irwin-Buncher, chief external affairs officer for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

She said, "When it comes down to it, folks are just experiencing, as I think all Americans are experiencing right now, that your resources just don't go as far as they did say five to ten years ago."

That's why more and more people are turning to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank for help.

"Families are stretched in new and different ways that we haven't really seen very much in our history. Unemployment is low. Folks are working. But they still are under-resourced to take care of all the household resources," Irwin-Buncher said.

In the last year, the food bank distributed a record-breaking 47 million pounds of food.

Nearly 40% of that was fresh produce. It's been a huge push in recent years by the food bank to add healthier options to the traditional canned and boxed goods.

All told, the food bank directly distributed or helped people access the equivalent of 53 million meals, which is the most it's ever done in a single year.

Irwin-Buncher added, "A lot of times we're talking with families who might have people in the household who are working two or three jobs, but they're just still not able to consistently put food on the table. They might not access our services monthly. It might be episodic, like when kids are out of school during the summer months or around the holidays, as we are now, when it's getting closer and household budgets are just tight."

According to a recent report from Feeding America, overall food insecurity in the Pittsburgh region is currently at 13%. That's one in eight people who need help putting food on the table. And it's worse among children, where the rate is 18.3% or one in five.

That means there's quite possibly someone who lives on your street who can't afford food regularly.

"When it comes down to it, food insecurity is an issue that affects every single zip code, every single county, every single area of the United States," Irwin-Buncher said.

That's why your donations to the KDKA-TV Turkey Fund are so vitally important.

Irwin-Buncher said, "When we all come together, that $10, that $20, that $1,000 from a local corporation or a local business, all of us coming together, that's where we have the big impact."

All of us, joining forces, to lend a hand to our neighbors.

"When someone sits down and takes the care to write a check or make a gift online to the Turkey Fund, it really does have a difference, and you are literally putting food on someone's table," Irwin-Buncher said.

It's a mission started by a woman in 1982 who sent $10 to KDKA's Al Julius and asked him to help unemployed, struggling steelworkers.

She added, "It's really neighbors helping neighbors. That's really what this work is all about. And this is a great expression of the love of the Pittsburgh community. The love that we all have for our neighbors right here in this region."

And it's that same mission, nearly 45 years later, that's turned into so much help for so many. A very Pittsburgh type of philanthropy.

"It is so Pittsburgh. And that's what I love about this community. It's just one of those things that we can all take a lot of pride in that we all come together, and we do this every year to make sure that folks in our community have enough," Irwin-Buncher said.

And now's your chance to help by donating to the KDKA-TV Turkey Fund. Go to any PNC Bank and they'll match all donations of $50 dollars. You can also text "KDTURKEY" to 50155, or donate at kdka.com/turkeyfund.

We're also still accepting checks, which can be mailed to "PO Box Thanks, Pittsburgh, PA 15230."