Food For Pullman
Thanksgiving Food Drive and Meal Giveaway - 2023 Edition
Date: November 22nd, 2023
Time: 1:30pm-5:30pm
Location: Pullman City Hall Senior Center
2023 Planning and Purchasing has Begun!
You can view a full list of this year's purchases as well as a transparency donor/spend list at this link.
Meal signups are now closed for 2023
Signups for this year's event have closed.
Each year I've prepared a handful of walk-up/day-of kits for the event, this year we do have four available as well on a first come/first served basis. Unfortunately delivery will not be possible for these.
This year the need and signups have been higher than the last two years and we have significantly gone beyond our food purchasing budget.
Hey everybody! Back here to announce the return for our 3rd annual Thanksgiving Meal giveaway and Food Drive.
I'd like to officially announce the return of our event for 2023. Our goal remains the same as the last two years - providing meals to people who need or want them for Thanksgiving, including shelf stable items so not everything has to be made immediately, and not putting any stipulations on participating (no business or religious events to attend, no programs to sign up for, etc).
Our goal also remains to help all those in Pullman who need it including students who we feel are often underserved by events like this in town.
Early details for the event:
- Location: Pullman City Hall Senior Center (190 SE Crestview St, Pullman, WA 99163 - Rec Center Building/Downstairs Entry)
- Date: Wednesday November 22nd, 2023 (the day before Thanksgiving)
- Time: 1:30pm to 5:30pm
As always we will be accepting food donations during the event as well. Any food donated during our event will get some free Pizza provided by our local Pullman Domino's. I also understand that many of you have asked how to donate but you leave for break before the event, I'm working this year to setup a bin at the site to provide donations throughout the month of November.
I'm also still working on the details of this but I plan on doing some sort of donation "proof" (picture of the drop off or something similar) to be entered in to a gift card prize drawing. Over the last two years we've donated hundreds of pounds of food to the WSU Cougar Food Pantry and any donation or left over kit items will go to them directly again this year. If you think random Reddit posts are suspicious and want to cut out the middleman, donate directly!
Signup Information:
We are opening meal-kit signup again this year, you can sign up for yourself or someone else at this link. If you have any questions for me about kits, the event, or anything else, please email foodforpullman@gmail.comÂ
We're not doing anything with this data side from setting up the meal kits and knowing how much of what to order. Costs have risen pretty dramatically the last two years and this helps us keep this possible. It also helps to know how much need we're looking at earlier, but there will always be walk-up kits available as well. My goal each year has been to not turn anyone away, thus far I've kept to that.
Donation Information:
If you would like to donate to the purchasing of the items for our kits please reach out to me at our email address foodforpullman@gmail.com - I'd like to emphasize that we are not a tax deductible donation organization (we turned the cost of doing this and going through all the steps required into just buying more food for people), but I strive to be as absolutely transparent as possible with all incoming and spending, every year. See this link for more details. Every year we've had a handful of donations that really help make this all happen and I couldn't be more happy.
Lastly, if you know someone who could benefit from this please tell them to come sign up (or help them if they require some assistance). We've done over 45 kits (~120 total Thanksgiving Meals) over the last two years, a few hundred pounds of food donated to the WSU Cougar Food Pantry, and actually put together a handful of Christmas meals last year as well for some people that reached out in need. Everyone who has helped make this possible has helped give back to the community we share and I'm so proud to be a small part of.
Also a shout-out and thank you to Paradise Creek Brewery for agreeing to cook our Turkey for the kits again for us this year (even paid for this is a hard thing to coordinate, so I'm extremely grateful), and our Domino's Pizza for donating pizza to hand out to people picking up kits and donating food again.
Thank you, and as always, Go Cougs!
The event for 2023 will be taking place at the Pullman City Hall Senior Center (Building B - Parks and Recreation). This venue has it's own entrance at the far end of the City Hall site from the main entry on SE Crestview St.
While it does help us to have you sign up for a bag (or multiple) before the event, we will be providing bags for walk-in needs on the day of the event as well.
Our goal is to turn no person away! All unused food from the event meal kits will be donated directly to the WSU Student Food Pantry to ensure nothing goes to waste.
All donations day of the event to the food drive will be donated to the same location.
Huge Thanks to our 2021/2022 Donors!
I would also like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that donated to make 2021 and 2022 possible and a success. Your donations have now combined to over 45 meal kits given out for the Thanksgiving Holiday on the Palouse (~130 meals worth of food) and day of donations of non-perishable foods for the WSU student pantry have totaled hundreds of pounds of food to help students at WSU during the rest of the year.
I'd like to give a personal thank you to Corey and JR for taking time out of their holiday schedules to help me source and put together all the meal kits, as well as spending time in the cold handing them out with me for two straight years!
I can't wait to get things started for 2023, our 3rd year of operating Food For Pullman's Thanksgiving food giveaway. It means the world to me that so many people have given time, money, food, and helped spread the word so that we can help people in need.
From the bottom the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Rob Larsen, Food for Pullman Founder