Latest / Ask The Experts / Filling the Thanksgiving Baskets with the Goodman Community Center 11-9-23

Transcript

Filling the Thanksgiving Baskets with the Goodman Community Center 11-9-23 · Ask The Experts

• 0:10
  A thirteen ten Wiba, Madison in the morning. Your twenty seven storm track
• 0:15
  forecast sunny, breezey to day high fifty one currently thirty seven. Got clear
• 0:19
  skies here at thirteen ten Wuiba. It's hard to imagine. I look out
• 0:23
  the window, I'm seeing the leaves fall from the trees. It's hard to
• 0:26
  imagine though, that Thanksgiving is already almost upon us. And joining us from
• 0:31
  the good Men Community Center is Amy. Ok. Amy, how you doing
• 0:34
  this week? I'm doing great. Thank you, it's great to have you,
• 0:38
  and of course getting ready for the big Thanksgiving basket distribution, and of
• 0:43
  course a lot of work goes into getting those baskets put together. A lot
• 0:50
  of donations are needed. And one of the things that's really cool about the
• 0:53
  Goodman Community Center is you guys have a couple of really phenomenal buildings. But
• 0:59
  this is not something necessarily we're not doing every month. You guys are doing
• 1:02
  this once a year, so things to try to, like, you know,
• 1:04
  kind of coordinate things very well. And one of the really neat things
• 1:07
  you're doing this year, Amy is really working right now and kind of closing
• 1:11
  out that certain sections of the pantry of the of the back shelves to get
• 1:17
  them ready for this, and the area is specifically talking canned food. You
• 1:21
  really want to get that, get those donations closed out and closed out sooner
• 1:23
  rather than later, don't you. Absolutely. So what happened last year was
• 1:30
  we went into the weekend thinking we were in pretty good shape, and then
• 1:33
  Saturday, kind of mid afternoon, we had tiles that were getting really low,
• 1:38
  like dangerously low, and then a couple of categories were completely gone by
• 1:42
  the end of Saturday, and it was very stressful, and so we put
• 1:47
  out a call to the community. And our community is amazing, right,
• 1:49
  Like, people turn up, they help out, they make those donations.
• 1:53
  What happened was on Sunday we had hundreds of people coming to make donations.
• 1:57
  We had thousands of people coming to pick up a basket, and it got
• 2:02
  really hexic and really hard, huge traffic, damn. And so this year,
• 2:07
  what we're trying to do is, you know, we'll be launching our
• 2:09
  canned food countdown on Monday of next week, and we're really hoping the community
• 2:15
  will help us get every category as close to zero as possible by Friday,
• 2:20
  November seventeenth, because we're like, let's just make sure this gym is totally
• 2:23
  full, ready to go so that we don't run into that problem again next
• 2:28
  year or this year. Yeah, so and then for that of course,
• 2:31
  and I could drive to the to the community center in my sleep. Will
• 2:35
  Bevisa Street. What is the exact address? What are the times as well?
• 2:38
  For folks that are saying I've got the cans, Yeah, they've got
• 2:43
  and they've got time to shop this weekend if they need to. But you
• 2:46
  can drop off foods right now if you want to. Honestly, we're at
• 2:49
  one forty nine Visa Street, right in the heart of the Atwood neighborhood on
• 2:53
  the east side of Madison, you know, feel free to drop off with
• 2:57
  our front desk. Starting Monday of next week, will be in our gym,
• 3:01
  you know, getting things organized, getting things sorted, and you can
• 3:05
  drop off donations from ten am until seven pm. We will have volunteers there
• 3:09
  taking donations, counting them, sorting them as as they arrived. Fantastic of
• 3:15
  course. Details for all of this stuff up at the Goodman Center's website Goodmincenter
• 3:19
  dot org. That's good g oo d men m a N Center dot org.
• 3:23
  So they're talking this morning with Amy from the Goodmin Center. And it's
• 3:27
  a good time of year as well to spend time with whether it's something fun
• 3:30
  for the co workers to do together, or family and friends really kind of
• 3:35
  gathering up and getting that stuff put together and doing you know, doing a
• 3:39
  very personal food drive one you know, you got folks you know that can
• 3:44
  that can help gather that stuff, kind of bring stuff together a little from
• 3:46
  all or even you know, there's other ways to do fundraising as well.
• 3:51
  It's a good time a year to be doing that, isn't it. Absolutely
• 3:53
  Food drive fundraisers razers. We rely on those, and it's a really great
• 3:59
  way, Like you know, maybe everybody, you know, money is tight
• 4:02
  for everybody right now. Maybe you can't afford to spend eighty dollars on all
• 4:06
  the things that go into a basket, but maybe you can chip in ten
• 4:11
  bucks here, maybe one of your coworkers can pick up a few cans,
• 4:15
  and then suddenly you're dropping off a pretty good sized box of food which goes
• 4:18
  a long way. Like a bunch of people doing what they can is what
• 4:24
  makes this drive happen every single year. One of the great things I mentioned
• 4:28
  the website Goodmancommunitycenter dot org that's Goodmancommunitycenter dot org. And when you go into
• 4:32
  the Thanksgiving basket section you guys put together and I love this like a food
• 4:39
  drive kit. So there's like all the you know, whether it's handouts to
• 4:44
  give people and other information, simple pages that people give out that are really
• 4:48
  catchy to really help them get people motivated to be part of the part of
• 4:53
  the drive and be part of the cause. Absolutely, we have signs and
• 4:57
  flyers, shopping lists, we have hits on you know, how to have
• 5:01
  a successful food drive, and we also have you know, if you want
• 5:04
  to promote your food drive on social media. Everybody's on social media these days,
• 5:09
  right like you could put it out on Facebook, on Instagram. We've
• 5:13
  got email templates so you don't even have to think too hard about it.
• 5:16
  We tried to make it as simple as possible for people to kind of rally
• 5:20
  their community to help our bigger community. And also another way to give is
• 5:25
  course through a monetary donation. And speaking of things that are that are made
• 5:29
  easy. I know Goodman can Goodmancenter dot org, Goodmincenter dot org, backslash
• 5:33
  donate. You have a secure section right there that folks can can if that's
• 5:38
  the way that they'd like to go. Can make it very easy to make
• 5:41
  a donation right online or mailing checks right to two fourteen Wabisa Street. Those
• 5:47
  are great opportunity as well. I know sometimes folks say, you know,
• 5:49
  I've got a busy schedule right now and this that going on, but I
• 5:54
  do want to help. If you can make a monetary donation, that is
• 5:57
  a that's a great benefit as well, isn't it. You know we use
• 6:00
  those monetary gifts to fill in the gaps throughout the weekend. So last year
• 6:04
  I went and ran to ald and bought out all of the oil they had
• 6:09
  the cooking Oisleses. I took the shelf of vegetable oil and I said,
• 6:12
  this is I'm taking this in my car. I'm bringing it back to the
• 6:15
  Goodman Center. So you know, we we do that. We do run.
• 6:18
  When we see things running low, we'll send a staff member, a
• 6:23
  volunteer, a member of our board out and then you know, our community
• 6:27
  is incredibly generous and any extra money we have left over goes to support all
• 6:31
  of the amazing programs and work that we're doing here at Goodman. You know,
• 6:34
  we have a pantry that's running three days a week and we're seeing unbelievable
• 6:39
  need in that pantry, so you know that will go to support that pantry
• 6:43
  throughout the year to support the kids who come here, the older adults.
• 6:46
  It's really it's a great cause no matter where the money ends up. It's
• 6:49
  a wonderful place. It is a fantas and folks that haven't had a chance
• 6:53
  to take a tour, and there's all sorts of great events going on as
• 6:57
  well as always at the Goodman Community Center truly for the entire community. Check
• 7:00
  them out online Goodmanscenter dot org. That's Goodmnscenter dot org. Real quick,
• 7:04
  Amy, we didn't actually talk a lot about some of the specifics as far
• 7:08
  as when it comes to that Thanksgiving basket what goes in it for folks that
• 7:12
  are going to do the do the do have a little volunteer get together and
• 7:17
  that. What are the things that you mentioned? Of course, cooking oil,
• 7:21
  vegetable oil, that's one of the items. What are some of the
• 7:24
  items on that list? Oh yeah, this is a great quiz for me,
• 7:27
  Sean, I love it. So we obviously a turkey that's the centerpiece
• 7:31
  of any Thanksgiving dinner. So we're looking for frozen turkeys. We have canned
• 7:35
  veggies on the list, cranberry stuffing, gravy, broth, mac and cheese.
• 7:42
  Those are sort of the list for the folks who are hosting a food
• 7:46
  drive. And then in addition to that, the things that we purchase or
• 7:49
  acquire through donations from partners in the community are dinner rolls, butter, eggs,
• 7:56
  milk, ice cream, and a pumpkin pie. So you know,
• 8:00
  it really is everything you would need to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal at home.
• 8:03
  And you know, so families they get to have that experience in their
• 8:07
  home, which I think anyone who's ever celebrated Thanksgiving the greatest thing is having
• 8:11
  the house smell like all that amazing food, right, and then gathering with
• 8:16
  your family and friends. That is fantastic. And Amy, I've got to
• 8:18
  tell you, you hit on everything so good. I was I was checking
• 8:24
  your work. Did you hit them all? Yeah? Also, that is
• 8:28
  absolutely fantastic. What a great opportunity for folks again. This week is a
• 8:31
  great week again, get folks around the office, start collecting those items and
• 8:35
  getting them together, getting them together, get them in a box. Of
• 8:39
  course, you can start dropping off at the Goodman Community Center as well.
• 8:41
  One of the hours. What are the dates? I know, as we
• 8:43
  get a little closer when you know the gym and that stuff, what the
• 8:46
  thirteenth is really when people can really start kind of dropping off at the gymnasium.
• 8:52
  Yep, November thirteenth, ten am. Will be there until seven pm.
• 8:56
  And if those hours don't work for you, our center is open from
• 9:00
  uh seven am to nine pm Monday through Thursday and until I think it's eight
• 9:05
  thirty on Friday night. Fantastic And of course all the details online Goodmancenter dot
• 9:09
  org. That's Goodmancenter dot org. Amy it's always great chatting with you.
• 9:13
  Keep up the great work and we'll do it all again real soon. Sounds
• 9:16
  great, Thank you so much. News comes your way next right here on
• 9:20
  thirteen ten Wiba