SARANAC LAKE — Adirondack Health and its employees gave back to the community this holiday season through donations to area food banks, the Adopt-a-Family drive and the Giving Tree.

Each year at Thanksgiving, Adirondack Health hosts an employee appreciation event in which each employee is offered a frozen turkey, homemade apple pie or bag of apples. Through this event, Adirondack Health employees received 680 turkeys, 250 apple pies and 125 bags of apples. Most of the remaining turkeys — 132 — were donated to local food pantries. Ten remaining apple pies were donated to Adirondack Health’s Turkey Trot in Lake Placid and the rest of the food items were used to prepare the annual complimentary Thanksgiving meal for Adirondack Health employees working the holiday.

Throughout the year, Adirondack Health also collects non-perishable food items in the main lobby and outside the cafeteria at Adirondack Medical Center. As the bins fill up, the food is donated to the Tri-Lakes food pantries on a rotating basis.

Adirondack Health’s Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot raised $19,000 to support its Fit for Life scholarship initiative, which makes fitness programming accessible to people who may otherwise might not be able to afford it. Race participants contributed an incredible 650 pounds of non-perishable food that Adirondack Health donated to the local food pantry.

Meanwhile, Adirondack Health’s Adopt-a-Family drive helped brighten the holiday season for 35 families across local counties. This drive pairs departments and individual employees who want to donate holiday gifts with local families in need. On Dec. 4, gifts were donated to Behavioral Health Services North, which delivers the gifts to the families.

The Lake Placid Health and Medical Fitness Center hosts many community drives throughout the year, including a Back-to-School drive, food drive, pet food drive, and more. This year’s Giving Tree collected more than 100 donated presents for the North Elba Christmas Fund, serving families in need across the area.