A Thanksgiving For All

This past spring, every single gala, benefit, and fundraiser around the country canceled their big plans.  That means that organizations of every shape and size lost their deposits on their venues and their vendors while everyone was staying home and trying to stay healthy. For the Winnetka Board of the Northwestern University Settlement House, they lost their $8,000 deposit paid out to their caterer, Catering by Michael’s of Morton Grove.  Michael’s offered the Winnetka Board their deposit back, but only in food, and how were they going to split up $8,000 worth of pigs in a blanket among their board.

Every Thanksgiving the Winnetka Board hoasts a Thanksgiving Dinner for the Northwestern University Settlement House (NUSH), it’s an in-person event on the Tuesday before the holiday, and they serve dinner for about 400 people.  Thanks to COVID, that wasn’t happening either.  So the board got the idea to take the $8,000 credit from Michael’s and turn it into Thanksgiving boxes they could donate to NUSH. With this innovative idea, they secured additional donors to pitch in, invited other settlement houses from the area, and passed out 2,800 Thanksgiving dinners in about 90 minutes.

Here is a definition of a win-win.  Thanksgiving dinners were distributed to 7 times the number of people they usually feed.  Catering by Michaels was able to bring back 15 employees to help cook and pack up all the food.  And all of this excitement and give-back energy kicked-off the Winnetka Board’s Gala To Go which started at the beginning of this month. They are looking to raise $100,000 towards the Northwestern Settlement and their Family CARES mental health services.  In February, all Gala to Go “attendees” will receive their Gala to Go Box filled with everything they need to be a part of this event at home.  Along with the Thanksgiving dinners passed out, there was a coat drive in association with NUSH’s Rowe Elementary School, where families received brand new coats for their children attending the school.

I first heard about this ultimate “lemons into lemonade” story at a virtual networking event I attended in early November. Normally I’m not a big fan of networking events in general, but this was a small group of women who I had already met and a few who I had already worked with over the last year.  I already knew that every woman zooming in was a quality person who wasn’t there just to promote their new idea, but who was honestly showing up to see if they could help each other out.  When Chris Beer, shown here on Fox News, told me about this Thanksgiving Dinner giveaway I knew I could donate my skills to help their cause and keep myself off the couch and away from the pantry.  In exchange for some promotion, I showed up with my gear, my mask, and a warm coat.

While hanging out in the chilly November weather, waiting for the food distribution to begin, I started chatting with the president of NUSH, who recently retired, and his staff. I admitted something that I haven’t admitted to a lot of people, because of the pandemic and my loss of income, I’ve stood in these lines.  For produce boxes by a local church in my neighborhood, for kosher food kits in the Lincolnwood Mall parking lot, or picking up food giveaways from my neighbors posting it on our upcycle group.  Thankfully, we aren’t food insecure, but that has been a concern since March and we’ve put almost as much effort into filling our fridge as we’ve put into filling our bank account to pay our rent.  For the first time, I understood that these people really were just like me, just like all of us, only a pandemic away.