Thanksgiving Basket Drive

That's a wrap! What a year it was for talking turkey and gravy, veggies, butter and rolls.

2024 Thanksgiving Basket Drive

For the past 36 years, our Thanksgiving Basket Drive has been a tradition, with many long-serving staff, volunteers and their children returning year after year. It takes a village, that’s for certain.

This year, we registered more than 4,000 families for a Thanksgiving Basket filled with all the groceries needed for a traditional holiday meal — that’s more than 25,000 Dane County residents (including 10,000 children!).

The need was so great this year that we had to close Basket registration after 24 hours — in years past, registration has been open for two weeks! These families were counting on us and YOU, and boy did you deliver! From frozen turkeys to monetary donations, you turned out for our neighbors.

Once again, our community came together, and we're so grateful for that.

Thanks to our partners:

A Look at Distribution Weekend

We depend on community members to make this epic effort happen, including hundreds of volunteers. Here's a look at the people who work so hard to make Thanksgiving a success. Thank you to everyone in our community for your support!

“My family and I were very emotional because we recently moved away from our country and never expected to have this kind opportunity to make a Thanksgiving meal for all of us. I’m so beyond grateful and blessed. Thank you all for everything.”

- 2023 Thanksgiving Basket recipient

Events

We are so thankful for community partners, businesses and organizations that host events to support our Thanksgiving Basket program.

Check Out 2024's Events

Event Photos from Beth Skogen Photography

Badgers Give Back

The Goodman Community Center's Thanksgiving Basket Drive is very thankful for our partnership with Wisconsin Badgers and the UW's Badgers Give Back. Wisconsin Athletics is proud to continue its strong tradition of fighting hunger in the community.

Francesca Frisque

Assistant Director of Food Pantry
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Thank you to our 2024 sponsors!

Each year, we can only achieve our goal because of organizations that pull together and contribute tremendous amounts of food, money and time to help us organize it all. Thank you to these sponsors for giving the gift of a holiday meal to families in our community.

If your business or organization is interested in sponsoring our 2024 Thanksgiving Basket Drive, contact Meghan Johnson, Corporate Giving and Events Manager, at mjohnson@goodmancenter.org or 608-204-8033. Click here to view our sponsorship levels.