Hey everybody, Rob here, organizer of the Pullman Thanksgiving Meal Giveaway and Food Drive last year. It turned into a fantastic success.

• We gave away roughly 21 full Thanksgiving meals to people in need in Pullman

• All kits that were not given out that day were donated directly, and the food drive portion of the event brought in hundreds of pounds of food to donate directly to the WSU Cougar Food Pantry

• We made the front page of the Moscow Pullman Daily News (slow news day, but still neat)

• Learned some great lessons along the way

• Had the opportunity to interact with many members of the community and meet people from all walks of life

That all being said, we're going to do it again this year. The planning stage is just kicking off, so if you'd like to get involved please let me know and I'll see if there is a way you can help out. Donations are greatly appreciated as we did this entirely out of pocket last year, which we'll gladly do again but any donations go directly back to the community. We will also provide food (likely pizza) to anyone who brings by food donations during the food drive.

Date: 11/23/22 (Wednesday before Thanksgiving)
Time: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Pullman City Hall, Senior Center (first floor of the Recreation Center Building)

The theme this year will be very similar - moderately shelf stable meals that lean towards traditional Thanksgiving style food (and easy to prepare without an industrial kitchen), given out with no questions asked. There are no meetings to attend, nothing to sign up for. No religious or political bend, no mailing lists. If you need food and want to feel like you're having a normal-ish Thanksgiving, grab a meal.

Student who's stuck in town over break? You're more than welcome as well.

After last year we did learn a few lessons, and we've made some improvements already:

• We're moving indoors this year. We've worked with the City of Pullman to host the event at the Senior Center. As much fun as spending a day in the park was last year it got so cold that eventually my propane bottles froze and the heater gave out. This year we've planned ahead better and secured an indoor space.

• We'll be running a meal signup this year. I will have additional meals prepared for walk-ups as well, but this will help us better plan for who needs what.

• I plan on making myself available to deliver limited meals directly to homes within Pullman either the evening of the drive or Thanksgiving morning. I realize that not everyone can make it to a location at a set time, so I'm going to work to do what I can to help those people out personally.

If you're interested in signing up for a meal, please use this link. 

UPDATE! Our shopping and meal kits have been put together as of 11/20/2022 (30 kits in total), if you are in need of a meal kit please email foodforpullman@gmail.com and we will try to help work something out. We will have limited walk-up kits available at the Senior Center on Wednesday - if you email me ahead of time I will make every effort to make sure you are taken care of! UPDATE!

If you are an individual or business looking for ways to donate, get involved, help, etc., please DM me on Twitter or Reddit, reply to this post, or email foodforpullman@gmail.com 

Thank you to everyone who helped last year, showed up to get some food, or sent along well wishes. Hopefully this year goes just as well. One way you can help without direct involvement is sharing this post to anyone who may need to see it.

Thank you, and Go Cougs!