Foodbuzz 24 24 24: Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I hope you all had wonderful days filled with family/friends and good food! I know I am so very thankful to have a loving family, a job, a warm place to sleep, and so many good things to eat. I think it's easy to take simple pleasures like cooking and eating for granted. It was this inspiration that lead me to this month's 24 24 24 proposal. I proposed a giving of a celebration to families in need. With the help of Dimitri House who paired John and I with the families, we were able to "adopt" two families for Thanksgiving this year. Both families are headed by strong women raising their kids alone, one family with 7 children ranging in ages from 1 to 16 (2 sets of twins!!). The mission is simple: provide the families with everything they need in order to celebrate Thanksgiving without any burden or worry.

Celebrating Thanksgiving with food is not a given for many families, there just isn't room in an already tight budget to splurge on such things. On a day that is filled with so much glutton and excess, it is so wonderful to be able to give something back so that they may celebrate and give thanks for all of the good things they do have.

With $250 from Foodbuzz we were able to give these families enough for Turkey day along with more food to use up later!! Actually, even with a full trunk and back seat filled with groceries we still didn't hit the $250 mark... what to do?? Wegmans giftcards!! This way the families could get whatever else we didn't pick up that they were craving. Hopefully they picked up something extra special :)

As for what we did pick up... we gave each family a call first to see if they would rather have turkey or ham for Thanksgiving... both were ladies after my own heart and picked ham!! MMMMM ham!!! John and I headed to Wegmans for a late night attack on the ailes! We filled two large carts to the brim with huge hams, stuffing, 10 lb bags of potatoes, yams, onions, all types of veggies, fruit, salad fixings, bread, milk, eggs, pumpkin and apple pies, cheese, crackers, PB and jelly, pasta, sauce, cereal... and so much more!

I was heading to NJ this past Sunday so John was left to deliver all of the food on his own. He was a trooper though and after a dozen or so trips back and forth to the car had all of the bags in the homes of the two families. Both families were overwhelmed with the amount of food we had for them, and totally floored with the giftcards.

Thank you Foodbuzz for making these events possible! Although John and I didn't take part in the actual Thanksgiving day event with these families, I think it was the best and most rewarding 24 24 24 participation I've had so far!

What would you say is the thing you are most thankful for?