The Cornucopia Food pantry wishes to thank the entire UNH and Durham Communities for their generosity in providing food baskets this Thanksgiving! Through your generosity, 168 food baskets were provided, feeding over 850 people with nutritious and wholesome food for the Thanksgiving holidays. This outpouring of support and the wonderful quality and fresh nature of the food provided made the holiday brighter for many people.

Once again this year we were pleased and fortunate to have the wonderful support of the Thompson School Community Leadership program’s first year students. They coordinated the donations for the Thanksgiving Baskets, and were able get foods or monetary donations for all of the food needed. This class, led by Professor Kate Hanson and Lisa Ciccotelli of the Office of Community Service and Learning, also worked hard on November 24th sand 25th to get the basket organized and distributed. They helped to make the project a smashing success! This is our fourth year in partnership with the Community Leadership program, and it gets better each year!

We were also fortunate this year to have the support of Nancy Johnson’s Dietetic Tech interns in the Thompson School. They provided over 300 loaves of fresh baked pumpkin, corn and cranberry bread to place in the baskets. This was a wonderful treat for our customers. Nancy’s class also provided bagel chips throughout the semester for consumption at the monthly Community Dinners hosted by the UNH Organic Gardening Club, the Cornucopia Food pantry and the Waysmeet Center.

Over ninety (90) volunteers contributed in some way to making the project a success, most on November 24th and 25th. Thank you to each and every one of you! We also thank the NH Food Bank for their donation of most of the turkeys; the Lee Market Basket for their discounts on food purchases we needed to make; The UNH Tennis Club Team for their donations and hard work on moving the turkeys on November 24th, The Community Church of Durham for their amazing supply of food and baskets; and Sarah Turner and the Seacoast Slow Foods group for the donations of fresh foods from the Dover Farmers Market. We also thank Co-Lead student Charlie Smith and the Bagelry for their donation of Bagels throughout the semester for the community dinners and for the food baskets. We also thank our wonderful social work interns, Caroline Ivy and Emily Briand, for their hard work throughout the semester on this project.

This is a true collaborative venture, and it only happens because of the generosity of folks like you!