Holiday Meals: DONATE FOOD AND SUPPLIES

Two men in Santa hats stand together, one holding a tray of pastries

Cooking, serving and delivering 1,500 Christmas dinners is a community effort. In addition to volunteering, you can support our holiday meals with your donations. Here are some ideas for helping us prepare and deliver our special meals to the community this year. There’s no need to sign up. Just get started and thank you in advance.

All drop-offs can be made Monday through Friday, 9:30 am to 1:00 pm at Goddard Riverside, 593 Columbus Avenue at 88th Street. 

Turkeys. We’re cooking traditional holiday meals as always. So bring your turkey — any size, any brand, frozen or thawed— to Goddard and we’ll take it from there. Cooking, carving, and getting it to our neighbors for the holiday. 

Raw or frozen turkeys should be dropped off by Thursday, December 14th. Any raw turkey donations afterward should be thawed so we can cook them right away. 

Cooked turkeys can be dropped off Thursday, December 21st and Friday, December 22nd.

(Please note the drop-off times listed above.) 

Wrapped Utensils. A plastic fork, spoon and knife wrapped in a paper napkin. Make as many as you can. And if you want to add a decorative holiday touch, that’s great.

Bagged Cookies. Everyone loves dessert, especially on the holidays. We hope to fill all of our nearly 1,000 delivered meals with delicious cookies. Please bake or buy cookies and place them in a sandwich-size (about 6” x 6”) zip-lock bag. (So maybe that’s four to six cookies in a bag.)

Holiday Cards. Children are such an important part of our volunteer family. We suggest making holiday cards at home — however many you want — and we will place them in our delivery and take-out bags.

Reusable Grocery Bags. Drop off your large bags, from FreshDirect and other delivery services. They’re a big help to our home delivery volunteers as they carry meals to our home-bound neighbors.

Donate. Finally, even with generous donations from volunteers and local businesses,  we will need to raise more money to purchase food and supplies. Please click the button below to send a contribution.

Thank you for your generous support.