Thanksgiving & Christmas 2024

With your help, we will make sure everyone in our community has a full table this Thanksgiving and share Christmas cheer with patients in all Hope Clinic departments!

Each Year, the Hope Clinic and our partners provide hundreds of families with a turkey and fixings to make Thanksgiving dinner, and we serve around 100 hot meals on Thanksgiving Day. We have also blessed the clients who have needed us most throughout the year with small Christmas Blessing bags to make the season special. This has all been made possible by YOUR generosity.
Here are ways you can support this tradition of love!

1.Prepare and Donate Thanksgiving or Christmas Bags:
The Hope Clinic is asking the community for 500 bags of Thanksgiving fixings (around $25 each) and 800 Christmas Blessings Bags (around $15 each).

Please sign up for the number of bags you can donate on a specific date so that we can manage the flow of donations, as we have limited storage space. Instructions for packing bags and a list of the required content are available for download below and will be emailed to all those who sign up. Click the link below to sign up to donate.

 

2. Volunteer during Thanksgiving: November 22-27 special shifts available!
We need volunteers to provide these services to the community. Below you will find information for three different volunteer shifts that take place throughout the week leading up to Thanksgiving.

  • Turkey Pick Up - Because of our limited cold storage capacity, we need to pick up turkeys from our local Meijer on two different occasions. Volunteers will meet at Meijer, load their car with turkeys, drive back to Hope Clinic, and help to unload into freezers. Volunteers must be able to lift 30 lbs, have a clean van, truck, or SUV that can hold at least 30 frozen 15 lbs turkeys, a valid drivers license, and up-to-date auto insurance. 10am Friday and Saturday.

  • Donation Coordination - On several evenings, donated bags of Thanksgiving fixings will be dropped off at the Hope Clinic. Volunteers will bring carts out to the parking lot to load donations and then organize the bags in the Hope Clinic Dining Room. Thursday the 21st from 6-7:30pm, Friday the 22nd from 6-7:30pm, Sat the 23rd 9am-11am

  • Thanksgiving Distribution: Community members receiving turkeys and fixings are assigned an afternoon to pick up their dinner. Volunteers will direct traffic, load turkeys and bags into cars, and check community members off the sign-up list. 12:30-4:30pm Friday and 11:30-2:50pm on Saturday. We will also have a first-come/first-serve turkey pick up day for those who did not sign up in advance and we will need volunteers November 27 from 8:30-11:00am


3. Hold a Holiday Food Drive to stock Hope’s shelves: We want to make sure that each community member who visits the Hope Clinic Pantry October- December leaves with bags full of the items they need to keep their family well fed during the holidays. You can donate staples like cereal, pasta, canned soup, peanut butter, cooking oil and non-food groceries like paper towel and dish soap. You can also donate holiday items like cranberry sauce, stuffing mix and spices, etc. Hope relies on these food drives to keep our shelves well stocked with a diverse range of items. Donate the items that YOUR family loves to have over the holidays!

Donations can generally be dropped off Mon-Fri 9am-4:00pm and Saturday 9am-12pm. We ask that folks NOT drop off large donations from food drives November 18-27. We have limited storage, and during that time, Thanksgiving bags are being dropped off. Please bring large donations the week of November 6th OR Monday, December 1st.

4. Donate!
We will be purchasing 300+ turkeys this year, and receiving more from Food Gatherers, our local Food Bank and other donors. The cost of turkeys has risen in recent years, so we need $6,500.00 to make this happen.

5. Connect someone who needs a Thanksgiving Dinner!

For those who do not sign up in advance, we will have a first-come/first-serve turkey giveaway on Wednesday, November 27th, 9-11am.

Hope is continuing our Thanksgiving partnerships with Arbor Bridge Church and the Covenant Pastor’s Group (CPG) to serve as many community members as possible!