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How do Boston’s soup kitchens and food pantries prepare for Thanksgiving?
The Greater Boston Food Bank will distribute 46,000 Thanksgiving turkeys in Massachusetts this year.
Local soup kitchens and food pantries spend months prepping for the Thanksgiving holiday, which many say is their biggest and busiest meal service of the year.
Hundreds of guests at Rosie’s Place in Roxbury can look forward to a “big party” waiting for them on Thanksgiving.
“Many of our women think of Rosie’s Place kind of as their home or their family,” said Sandy Mariano, chief program officer at Rosie’s Place. “So it really is getting together with a group of friends and celebrating and dancing and singing and eating lots of good food. It’s a fun event.”
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One in three households in Massachusetts are food insecure, according to a study from the Greater Boston Food Bank. Behind one meal at local soup kitchens and food pantries are countless people working for weeks or even months. Here’s how it all comes together each year.
Getting the turkey to the table
At Haley House, a South End soup kitchen with a residential program, Thanksgiving prep doesn’t necessarily start with a turkey. It starts with their guests.
“We really want to be intentional in thinking about what our guests want,” Haley House director Reginald Jean said.
A few years ago, Jean and his team asked the live-in residents at Haley House what they wanted out of their Thanksgiving meal, creating an “intentional community” for everyone involved.
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“That was really exciting to see the excitement of folks to walk into our soup kitchen and see something that they aspired to eat that day be on the menu,” he said. “It’s not just a meal, it’s something that they really wanted on this special day, and we were able to provide that.”
Then comes the challenge of getting all of that food. That’s where the Greater Boston Food Bank comes in. The food bank provides millions of pounds of food each year to its 600 partner food pantries across Massachusetts. Chief operating officer Cheryl Schondek said the food bank will distribute more than 46,000 Thanksgiving turkeys in Massachusetts this year.
“We’re feeding people the conventional food that they need,” Schondek said. “Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And to top it off, we’re adding the extra tonnage for the Thanksgiving holiday.”
To get ready for Thanksgiving, the Greater Boston Food Bank starts preparing in March. The process starts by asking the 600 partner pantries how much food they need for the holiday, including turkeys, she said.
Schondek then assembles a bid for the number of turkeys, amount of produce, and other ingredients needed for the meal. She then gives the bid to retailers and wholesalers so she can negotiate prices.
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“During the pandemic, we saw the volume [of food] increase exponentially, and it never went back,” Schondek said. “Those soup kitchen shelters and pantries, they are feeding 600,000 clients a month. That’s a staggering statistic — triple the amount prior to COVID.”
The food bank receives the food in waves over the course of several months. Thanksgiving distribution begins in October, as the food bank transports all of the food it can to local pantries.
“This is a tremendous amount of moving parts and a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes that the warehouse, the logistics, the supply chain, the drivers, the transportation team, the member agency team, and the food acquisition team do to make this work seamlessly for the client that wants to enjoy a healthy meal at Thanksgiving,” Schondek said.
The food bank hosts its annual “Chain of Giving” event in early November, where politicians, public servants, and Red Sox mascot Wally form a giant human chain while unloading turkeys from the delivery trucks.
Setting the table for the ‘biggest meal of the year’
When the turkeys (and all of the fixings) make their final stop at Haley House, staff and volunteers hit the ground running. According to Jean, prep day is just as exciting as the holiday itself.
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Jean said that Haley House has a five-hour shift before Thanksgiving, when volunteers and live-in residents come together to prepare some of the side dishes before the big day. He said they prioritize dishes they can pop in the fridge and warm up in the oven later, like mac and cheese.
The star of the show — the turkey — is always prepped on Thanksgiving, Jean said. This year, he said Haley House ordered six or seven birds.
“It’s rewarding seeing all of the meals are either eaten the day of the service or folks take it to-go,” he said. “Very little food goes to waste, and it does feel really good to be able to provide and nourish folks that need those meals.”
At Rosie’s Place, only some of their food is sourced from the Greater Boston Food Bank. Other food, like produce, comes from local farm vendors, other, smaller food banks, and their own purchases. But according to Mariano, that doesn’t make Thanksgiving meal prep any easier.
“Think of your own home, and make your own stuff,” she said. “There’s a lot to do. You might have 10 people you need to serve. I mean, we’ve had 500, 600 people here for Thanksgiving. So it’s going to be quite a day.”
Rosie’s Place starts preparing weeks ahead of the holiday in order to meet a rapidly growing demand for their meals. Mariano said they’ve implemented a new program where women can stop by in the days leading up to Thanksgiving and pick up all of the side dishes and ingredients needed at home.
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On Thursday, a dedicated team of staff at Rosie’s Place prepares the meal and makes sure their all-day food service runs smoothly. Mariano said the day is “really busy,” but she looks forward to it every year. She’s worked at Rosie’s Place for more than two decades.
“I’ve spent many, many Thanksgivings here,” Mariano said. “It really is a celebration. It feels like an enormous family that comes together.”
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