Dear Friends and Intercessors,
It’s 2 ½ weeks until Thanksgiving and our CedarWood team has been hard at work preparing for our Thanksgiving meal distribution. I am asking you, personally, to pray for our team.
Our 2024 final Thanksgiving meal kit count was sent out with the following numbers:
Here are our 2024 Final Updated Thanksgiving meal final numbers! As you may recall, we started last week on Nov 18th and continued to serve holiday meals this week to those who missed our event last Monday. Here are our final results!
- Nov 18th--191 in person clients and 40 turkeys shared with a local community kitchen that cooks and serves a full Thanksgiving meal to the public.
- Nov 20th--15 turkeys and meals sent to Seniors in Sultan, WA
- Nov 25th--64 more families received holiday meals
- Totaling 270 personally distributed meal kits through CedarWood AND the 40 additional turkeys shared with Annie's Community Kitchen for their meal program.
This equals 310 turkeys and/or equivalent Gift Cards--shattering the 184 record we set last Thanksgiving! The 270 full meal kits we personally distributed represent a massive 147% growth rate over last year.
Thanksgiving meal kits include a turkey or large hens for those who prefer a smaller bird, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing mix, gravy, & cranberry sauce. (This is distributed with our regular weekly grocery distribution-see below for those details.)
Why is it so important that we look at last year’s meal distribution count? Because this year we are already breaking records in our non-holiday pantry attendance.
Last week, our Monday non-holiday CedarWood Pantry event boasted 171 clients in attendance, representing 605 family members. (Usually, one person goes shopping for the family, we keep track of how many family members that one person represents.)
Last year at this time, we had 142 clients in attendance representing 473 family members.
As you can see, we’ve had tremendous growth between the two years.
What do we distribute to our clients on a regular basis?
- 4 servings of fresh meat (not canned) per family member per week is the standard. When we have more, we provide more.
- Dairy products/all kinds of cheese/eggs
- Bread: every kind you can imagine
- Whole grains: beans, rice, oats, and so on.
- Produce: fresh fruits and veggies, seasonal produce is abundantly supplied.
- Pantry items, peanut butter, jelly, honey, tuna, juice, and so on.
- Miscellaneous items, seasonal items, specialty sauces from hot sauce to sweet sauce, seasonings and so on.
When the Lord told us to set up CedarWood, we set out to provide quality nutrition that would allow families to not simply survive but thrive. So, when our clients come to our Pantry event, they leave with a shopping cart full of food—and its food we would serve our own families. This is a tremendous undertaking each week, with 13 paid staff members and 26 volunteers feverishly working to make it all happen!
Blessings & love,
Ricci Johnson-Wilson
Thanksgiving will be huge!
