Forget about Tom Turkey. Last June a refrigerated truck was decapitated by a low overhang (and an overly optimistic driver) in the parking deck at Crabtree Valley Mall.

And that's a problem. Because while a single, plump turkey might feed 12 to 15 people, the totaled truck is, or was, part of a small fleet that feeds hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Ten refrigerated trucks (and several smaller trucks and vans) are the arms and legs of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, which covers seven counties in the Triangle and Eastern North Carolina.

They work their daily miracles in the simplest of ways. They pick up food from places that have too much and give it to groups that help people who have too little.

The good is donated by grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, universities and Starbucks coffeehouses. Most of it is still fresh but on the brink of being unusable. In that way the shuttle's efforts differ from the fine work done at the N.C. Food Bank; this food is too perishable to be banked.

For that reason, what isn't picked up by the shuttle has another certain home: the Dumpster. In a world where hunger thrives, that is a crime.

On Wednesday morning, I rode part of a shuttle route in Raleigh with Tom Law, a retired minister, and Mike Timmons, a retired chemical engineer. In three hours, they collected 1,100 pounds of food from six grocery stores and several Starbucks: doughnuts, pizzas, veggie burgers, rotisserie chickens, fruit tarts, potato salad and bananas. In one hour, they redistributed it out of the back of the 16-foot refrigerated truck at three homeless shelters and one home that assists young people in trouble.

Most days, the truck is empty by the end of their shift. On rare days when it is not, they take the leftovers to Food Shuttle headquarters, located conveniently next to the N.C. Farmer's Market (by far the organization's largest contributor of food.) There, the food can be redistributed again -- or, especially in the case of produce -- blanched and blast-frozen for later use.

I first learned about the shuttle's work from Erin Malloy-Hanley, whose husband, Dick, was a longtime "angel" to the organization. He and Law drove a truck in Raleigh and Chapel Hill for several years before Dick Hanley was diagnosed with cancer and died, too young. In Hanley's name, the shuttle was trying to raise $25,000 to win a matching grant from the City of Raleigh to buy a new refrigerated truck to replace the decapitated one. But that was many weeks ago. Now the shuttle is close to its truck-fund goal. Unfortunately, the Food Shuttle faced another unexpected economic hardship this fall. In a word: gas. The nonprofit, after all, lives and dies by the truck.

"We nearly had to shut our doors a couple of times," said Jill Bullard, co-founder and director.

Recently, however, the group received a new matching grant offer: If the shuttle raises $50,000, a nonprofit will donate another 50 grand to match it.

Not a bad investment for a group that collects and redistributes more than 5 million pounds of food a year. On this day of national gluttony, I have to ask: Can you help?

The Food Shuttle can be reached at 250-0043 or P.O. Box 14638, Raleigh NC 27620. Or visit www.foodshuttle.org.