Thanksgiving Baskets Additional Information

Additional Information:

• Names of families are provided to us each year by organizations such as The Red Cross of Hamilton County and the LaPlaza Hispanic Center.
• We encourage friends, neighbors, religious education classes, and parish organizations to go together to donate a basket if they are unable to do one on their own.  A typical basket will cost around $75-$85.
• We provide refreshments for our volunteers and drivers.  Parishioners donate food and beverages.  A local business usually provides the donuts.  We will have coffee, doughnuts, juice, fruit, sloppy joe’ or chili, vegetable trays, cookies, soft drinks, and other snack items.  Help in the kitchen is always needed.
• Some parishioners may choose to give monetary donations; therefore we need volunteers to shop with the donated money. 
• The week before the event, we need people to make reminder calls to those who have signed up.  We also need volunteers to call our recipients from Good Samaritan to remind them of the day and time of the event.
• We need many volunteers in the parking lot who can help lift the baskets from and into cars.  This is very popular with our confirmation candidates, and service hours can be obtained for this.
• Administrative help is also needed once the lists of names of needy families are obtained.  We have approximately 625 families to delivery to; therefore, we need help with the printing of maps.  Maps are made on your home computer using MapQuest, and addresses are grouped to make delivery easy.  
• This Ministry begins at 8:00 AM with basket drop-off, and deliveries begin at 9:00 AM.  All basket deliveries are usually completed by noon. 

As you can see, it takes many people to make this program a success.  We encourage everyone to participate in whatever way they can and hope this project will continue to grow as it has each year!