On Thursday, COTS, a community service agency in Petaluma, put out the call for 250 turkeys for its Thanksgiving week food box program.

Twenty-four hours later, COTS had 280 turkeys.

How did it generate such a quick response? It used e-mail and Facebook to spread the word to community networks of friends and supporters.

So much more phone trees. As technology changes the way people share information, community organizations are catching up to the power of social networks to convene folks in common cause.

In my Sunday column, I wrote about the state of our world from the perspectives of three non-profit executives, including John Records of COTS. You can learn more about how to help those agencies by going to their Web sites. Here are the links:

COTS

Redwood Empire Food Bank

Volunteer Center of Sonoma County

You can also visit The Press Democrat’s Good Deeds blog here.

And BTW, Happy Thanksgiving.