President Bush this morning toured the Central Virginia Foodbank in Richmond, where he honored a volunteer worker and briefly helped place canned food into a cart for distribution.

He then departed for Berkeley Plantation, his next stop, aboard a helicopter, which lifted off from behind the Science Museum of Virginia at 11:44 a.m.

Bush arrived in Richmond at 10:29 this morning aboard Air Force One on a dual mission: To honor foodbank volunteer, Paul Anderson, and to visit the site of a Virginia Thanksgiving that rivals that of the Pilgrims in Plymouth Rock.

Upon his arrival at the airport, the president was greeted by a host of Virginia politicians.

Waiting to greet him were Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, and U.S. Reps. Eric I. Cantor (R-7th), J. Randy Forbes (R-4th) and Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-3rd).

At the foodbank, Bush was to honor Anderson with the President's Volunteer Service Award, according to the White House.

Anderson, a member of the foodbank's operations committee, has logged more than 500 hours of volunteer service this year.

Bush is now en route scheduled to visit Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County, where he is scheduled to speak at 12:40 p.m..

"The president will talk about what we as a nation can be thankful for during Thanksgiving," a spokesman said.

Virginia long has claimed that the first Thanksgiving took place on Dec. 4, 1619, at Berkeley, more than a year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts and two years before the Pilgrims observed what has caught on in history as the first Thanksgiving.

The Thanksgiving holiday, observed on the fourth Thursday of November, commemorates the Pilgrims' celebration of the good harvest of 1621.

Berkeley is a plantation on the James River that was the home of the Benjamin Harrison family that produced two presidents.

A boat from Jamestown sailed up the James and landed there in December 1619.

According to a document, an edict from the London Company, which settled Jamestown, read:

"Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for platacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

That is the basis of the Virginia claim.

-- Mark Bowes and Tyler Whitley