The Food Bank of Delaware was the scene of a barbecue party held as a reunion for a crime dubbed “The Great Chicken Heist of 2008”

Last June, thieves drove off with two trailers of meat that Perdue Co. had given the food bank to feed the poor. Media coverage fueled coast-to-coast outrage and led to recovery of the trucks, abandoned days later in New Jersey, the loads of poultry useless.

The 57,000 pounds of meat -- called "food bank gold" for its high protein, easy preparation and popularity -- would have served an estimated quarter-million main-dish portions to the needy, elderly, disabled, unemployed and working poor.

In response, support came from as far as California and Sweden.

Thursday\'s barbecue was held at the scene of the crime -- in the food bank parking lot, where a big tent sheltered the crowd of about 250 from torrents of rain.

Many in the crowd wore T-shirts declaring "The First Annual Chicken Heist Barbecue" with a picture of a chicken on a milk carton, missing-child-like, saying, "Have you seen me?"

Guests posed for snapshots with their heads through a carnival-style painting of a chicken, with University of Delaware mascot YouDEE and cardboard standups of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, also sporting chicken shirts.

Dotting the crowd -- entertained by the band Porkroll Project, with tunes including "High on the Hog" -- were those drawn into the chicken-heist drama.

Food bank warehouse manager Jim Weir, serving at a cash bar, had gone with driver James Williams to retrieve the trucks. Nearby were staff and volunteers who awaited their nighttime return, cheering and weeping when the trucks rolled into sight and Williams jubilantly honked the horn.

"Hard to believe it\'s been a year," Weir said, adding that the trucks might never have gotten home without help.

Barbecue guest John Blasko, general manager of Chrome Deposit Co., a neighbor of the food bank in Delaware Industrial Park near Newark, recalled a 5 a.m. phone call he\'d received, saying a rig was missing. He was checking other businesses for surveillance tapes when the link was made between the rig\'s theft and that of the food bank trailers, one of which was stored rigless.

 Blasko and driver John Miller also went to fetch the trucks, paying for fuel fill-ups and engine repairs at a shop where New York, New Jersey and cable media flocked to them. Blasko also cleared the last hurdle, getting Jersey City officials to waive impound fees.

The company and its owners, a Canadian family, "were glad to help," he said.

Another guest, Lisa Detwiler, got the food bank a top-of-the-line surveillance system with help from Sweden.

Detwiler, chief marketing officer of SSD Technology Partners in New Castle, suggested the donation and marketing coordinator Bobbie Brooks got the firm\'s supplier, Axis Communications of Sweden, to contribute security cameras and software. SSD gave camera housings and other components in what company President Barbara Hines called an emotional project.

State police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Whitmarsh, attending in civilian clothes with his family, facilitated the national news coverage of the heist, which was credited for the trucks\' recovery. Now an ongoing food bank supporter, he coordinated Delaware State Police\'s two-week donation drive, with barrels at state police headquarters in Dover and troops statewide collecting 7,504 pounds of food.

As the chicken heist continues to be celebrated annually, Patricia D. Beebe, president and chief executive officer, said the food bank will keep honoring "those who helped us in our hour of need."

Others included Waste Management for giving services and fees, Delaware Solid Waste Authority for assistance, lawmakers giving grant money, Jamestown Painting and Decorating, which provided surveillance video, and food donors from New Castle County Emergency Medical Services and the Elkton, Md., Food Lion, to families statewide and as far as California.

The crime\'s positive aftermath gave the chicken-heist story a happy ending, Beebe said, adding, "we made a lot of new friends."