Thanksgiving food drive
Our church is doing a Thanksgiving food drive for families in the area, and we are asked to collect in a paper bag enough nonperishable food for a traditional Thanksgiving meal for one family. We are also to include a gift card for the perishable things. Here is what I’ve come up with (I will try to get canned/boxes of everything):
– stuffing
– mashed potatoes
– sweet potatoes (if it exists in nonperishable form?) + mini marshmallows
– dinner or crescent rolls (if you can get it nonperishable)
– gravy
– canned green beans + cream of mushroom soup + fried onions for green bean casserole
– cranberry sauce
– pumpkin pie (as much as I can get that’s nonperishable)
How does my list look? Am I missing anything? It was hard to not consider anything fresh or refrigerated!
5 thoughts on “Thanksgiving food drive”
Sweet potatoes can come either in box mix or canned yams. Just watch out for the canned ones, most come in a heavy syrup. Why anyone would want to make those yummy things sweeter, I have no idea!
As for the pumpkin pie, just buy the canned pumpkin pie mix and a box crust mix.
The only thing I could see you were missing was another veggie like peas, corn or carrots. Canned veggies aren’t my favorite but this is what our church asks for every year for our Thanksgiving baskets.
I agree, other canned veggies would work as well, like carrots or corn. I was thinking baking mixes could be donated to make rolls or maybe even cornbread mix.
Fresh sweet potatoes aren’t totally nonperishable, but they’d certainly last till Thanksgiving if bought today. However I have tried the Allen’s brand of canned sweet potatoes which were seasoned and pretty decent tasting.
For pumpkin pie you’ll need not only the canned pumpkin but also evaporated milk. I would leave the crust to the perishable gift card because someone might not have a pie tin at home if you buy a mix.
Or, you could go totally nonperishable with a pumpkin cheesecake mix (see Jello brand) and a packaged graham cracker crust.
Good luck!
I was going to suggest flour and oil and maybe baking powder and soda, but someone else’s suggestion of baking mix is probably better. People can then make rolls and pie crusts from it, or really anything they want.
Our church does a food drive, too, and they collect different items each week. I forget the exact list, but it’s something like this (you could pick one or more things from each category). Oh, and I’ve noticed that the no salt added canned veggies taste more fresh.
stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes
yellow & orange veggies (corn, carrots, yams)
green veggies (green beans, peas)
cranberry sauce
baking mix (rolls, biscuits, cornbread)
cake mix & frosting, pie filling & crust
$10 gift card for turkey
I agree that you may need to get something to go with the pumpkin – like evaporated milk or pudding mix – to make the pie. You could get boxed crust mix, or the graham cracker shell.
Your list looks good!
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