Thanksgiving Give Back Week 2025: Feeding 30,000 Families and Supporting Furloughed Workers
This Thanksgiving, we’re focused on one goal: provide holiday meals for 30,000 families across our region during Thanksgiving Give Back Week. You can make an immediate difference—just $24 sponsors one family’s Thanksgiving dinner.
At So What Else, Thanksgiving isn’t just a holiday—it’s a reflection of who we are and what we do. Our name is a question: so what else can we do to help? Serve. Feed. Build community. Take action.
Over time, this week of gratitude has grown into a year-round mission to tackle some of America’s most urgent challenges:
- Food waste
- Hunger
- Civic engagement and service
- Children’s education and enrichment
Thanksgiving is So What Else on overdrive—but our work never stops when the leftovers are gone. The numbers can be hard to believe: According to the USDA, more than 30% of food in the U.S. supply chain goes to waste.
Guided by our co-founder of the food program, Megan Joe, we built a system to use this surplus to feed our community. Because surplus food is free, the key is infrastructure. With committed staff, cold storage, reliable trucking, and a relentless can-do spirit, we’re able to rescue and redistribute up to 20 million pounds of food each year—supporting more than 179 partner sites and reaching roughly 420,000 individuals across nearly 150,000 households annually.
Join Us For Thanksgiving Give Back Week 2025
This season, get involved during our Thanksgiving Give Back Week!
- Sponsor a family for just $24
- Donate food by cleaning out your pantry of unused shelf-stable goods, double up on your Thanksgiving dinner shopping, or host a food drive!
- Volunteer at a distribution during our extended holiday hours Thursday, November 20 through Wednesday, November 26
We’re also hosting a Special Distribution Day on Sunday, November 23 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at 4924 Wyaconda Road, North Bethesda, MD, with extended hours and increased inventory for families affected by the government shutdown. Sign up to volunteer today and make a difference this Thanksgiving!
Together, we can take on the intertwined issues of food, children, and poverty. Let’s create meaningful, hands-on experiences rooted in hard work and compassion. So what else can we do to help? With you beside us, a lot.
