Thanksgiving Basket Drive

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

2025 Thanksgiving Basket Drive

For the past 37 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.

The need was so great this year that we had to close Basket registration after only 5 hours: The need continues to increase, and we felt that more this year than any year before. Yet, the community still showed up for each other. More food was collected for holiday meals and the general pantry users than we've ever seen.

“It meant so much to me. I don't have much of a family, but my daughter and grandson. I never get to celebrate the holidays with them, because it embarrasses me not having food to have the family gathering for the holidays. I'm very thankful to ya'll at Goodman center and the people who are able to donate. God bless ya'll 🤗😊”

- 2025 Thanksgiving Basket recipient