Latest / Ask The Experts / Countdown to Thanksgiving with the Goodman Community Center 11-2-23

Transcript

Countdown to Thanksgiving with the Goodman Community Center 11-2-23 · Ask The Experts

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  You're not, is now right? Thirty WIBA Thanksgiving is going to be here
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  whether you're ready or not. And for the thirty I'm gonna go with thirty
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  fifth. Let's go with thirty fifth year. Goodman Community Center has been doing
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  their Thanksgiving basket drive and joining us from the Goodman Community Center is Amy,
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  Oh Aamy, how you doing this morning? Am I right? Thirty five
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  years? Isn't it? It is thirty five years? You're right? Goodness?
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  How great is that? And before we talk about some opportunities for folks
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  to help out, the word is definitely out. And I know the registration
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  The slots filled up very quickly this year, didn't they. Yeah, we
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  saw an unbelievable response to our our registration period. So for the second time
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  in my time here, and I'm told by some of my colleagues who have
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  been here longer, it's the second time ever, we actually had to close
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  registration early because the you know, we always register you more than we plan
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  to give out because folks plans change and not everybody end up needing a basket.
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  But we registered more than we ever have in the past, and so
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  you know, folks are needing the help this year. People really are struggling.
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  We've seen it in our food pantry. This entire year, we're averaging
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  you know, three hundred, three hundred and forty families a week, and
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  in the past that number was closer to two hundred. So, you know,
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  families just need the help this year. And it's an important reminder as
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  well, as you mentioned, families need help this year and every year and
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  again thirty five years now the basket Drive has been going on. It's a
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  really cool program to help help families. And again, you know, every
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  year a little bit different as far as challenges and other things for folks.
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  And one of the things I really love about what you guys do at the
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  Goodman Community Center with the Thanksgiving Basket Drive is you really make it. It's
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  an opportunity for folks to have that traditional holiday, do everything at home.
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  They get all the entire setup and it's just it's a perfect program. Let's
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  talk about for those families that are registered, what they're going to receive with
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  their Thanksgiving basket and how that also works. Yeah, so they will pick
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  up their basket the weekend before Thanksgiving. So this year that's the eighteenth,
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  nineteenth and twentieth and they'll receive two grocery bags filled with both perishable and non
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  perishable foods. They'll receive a frozen turkey, they'll receive milk, eggs,
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  butter, a pumpkin pie, ice cream, and then you know kind of
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  the traditional things like the cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, some canned veggies.
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  We throw mac and cheese in there. We've added last year we added
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  cooking oil because we know that that's sort of an essential piece when you're preparing
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  a meal, and it's also just a great pantry staple. So every fan
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  gets the bottle of cooking oil as well. Great, that's fantastic. And
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  as we talk about these items, obviously they're not just coming out of thin
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  air. This is where folks can help out, isn't it. Yes,
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  absolutely, so we really need the community to donate food, to donate money
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  to host the food drive. You know, if you have a kid,
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  for example, it's such a great way for a child to learn about giving
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  back to their community. We just shared a story about a little girl named
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  Louise who's hosted a food drive for the last three or four years now,
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  and every year she sets the higher goal for herself and what a lesson that
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  young person is learning. Folks can head over to Goodmancenter dot org to learn
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  all about how they can help out this year, and that's Goodmanscenter dot org,
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  good m Ancenter dot org. All the information there. Looking for turkeys,
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  vegetables, as you mentioned, mac and cheese, the gravy, the
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  cranberry sauce, all that stuff. You can donate. Of course, donate
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  time if you're available. I know you guys always need volunteers. Those monetary
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  donations as well, and I think that's an important thing to point out.
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  Sometimes people say, well, you know, I've got a busy schedule,
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  but I really want to do something. Monetary donations are significant for a number
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  of reasons. One of the big ones is, I know you guys work
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  with like Second Harvest and some other organizations. Really able to maximize those dollars,
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  Really able to maximize those donations. Yeah. Absolutely, there's a number
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  of things that we just purchased. You know, we don't necessarily want the
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  community to buy us a bunch of roles and then they get twisted. But
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  we need to know that we're going to have roles for the families, and
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  so we go ahead and purchase the roles from a local grocery store. And
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  yeah, you're right, Like we work with Second Harvest. This year,
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  Second Harvest is actually providing everything to us without a cost, which is amazing.
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  But that money will go to buying butter and milk and eggs and all
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  of those perishable things, even turkeys if we don't get enough turkeys donated.
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  You know, as the weekend goes on, we keep an eye on the
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  stock, we get an idea of how much stuff we need, and we
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  send people out to go shopping and to buy food to fill in the gap.
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  And so folks can make of course donations monetary donations right online. What
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  does drop off then for food donations and how can folks which folks need to
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  know about that. Yeah, so this year we're asking folks to drop off
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  by Friday, November seventeenth, So we will have our gym open November thirteenth
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  through seventeenth, ten am to seven pm. And we're really hoping that we
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  can zero out our canned food countdown by Friday, November seventeenth. So what
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  happened last year was we actually ran out of food on Saturday, Like we
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  had entire piles you know, like all of the gravy was gone, all
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  of the oil was gone, and we were like, oh no, what
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  are we going to do? And we put out this call and it was
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  amazing. The community responded and we see it every year. But what happened
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  was we had thousands of people coming to pick up their baskets and thousands of
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  people coming to drop off food as a logistical nightmare. So it was both
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  like so inspiring and else was just like, oh my goodness, our volunteers
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  were really struggling. So this year, we want to make it as easy
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  as possible on our volunteers. We want to know that we're set for the
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  weekend and we're really hoping that the community can turn up for us and help
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  us zero out. That can food countdown by Friday, November seventeen. Great
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  opportunity right now to help out. You can get all the details online Goodmancenter
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  dot org. That's Goodmancenter dot org again. Monetary donations, volunteer opportunities,
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  and you mentioned amy with the volunteer stuff, whether you want to do it
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  yourself, a family event, make it something for the office to get involved
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  in. You guys need you guys need all the hands you can get and
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  all the help you can get to put this stuff and coordinate all of this
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  stuff. So opportunities for that monetary as well as well as the food stuff.
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  And we're going to be talking the next couple of weeks late leading up
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  to the big day, and we'll get more details as that progresses. But
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  as you mentioned, right now is the time to be making those plans and
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  put things in place. Amy, it's always great chatting with you. You
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  enjoy this beautiful day and I look forward to talk to you real soon and
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  looking forward to seeing all the smiling faces with all the volunteers and all the
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  people doing the great things at community Goodman Community Center sounds great. Thank you
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  so much. And again the website, all the details. Get on over
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  there right now Goodmancenter dot org. That's Goodmancenter dot org. See how you
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  can help out again, just head on over to the website. A bunch
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  of different opportunities for you, your family, your co workers. Check it
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  all out Goodmancenter dot org. Get news next here on thirteen ten Wiba