2022 Press Release

Friends of the Poor is proud to once again announce three community-based programs to help those in need this Thanksgiving: The Thanksgiving Dinner for Adults and Elderly, the Family-to-Family Thanksgiving Food Basket Program, and the Interfaith Prayer Service.

The Interfaith Prayer Service, hosted by the Scranton Area Ministerium, is the first event to kick off our Thanksgiving celebrations at Temple Hesed, 1 Knox Rd., Scranton, on Friday, November 18th at 7PM.

The Thanksgiving Dinner for Adults and Elderly will be distributed as take-outs on Tuesday, November 22nd outside of the Scranton Cultural Center, 420 N Washington Ave, Scranton, PA 18503, from 2:30 to 5:30PM. Anyone in need of a cooked Thanksgiving meal can drive-by or walk-up for a meal. We will have the 400 & 500 of N. Washington Avenue and Vine Street closed for this event. We ask that anyone planning on attending for a meal not line up any earlier than 2PM on N. Washington Avenue. We will have 3,500 meals, and we will continue to distribute them until we run out.

We will also provide meals to those adults and elderly that live in low-income high rises through our continued partnership with the Lackawanna County Area Agency on Aging and the Junior League of Scranton.

The Family to Family Thanksgiving Food Basket Program, directed by the Robeson family, will pick up where the dinner leaves off the very next morning. Beginning at 9AM, we will provide all grocery items needed to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal to families in need in front of the Scranton Cultural Center. We will be there until 5PM or our supplies run out. We are thrilled to be back at the Scranton Cultural Center, as we had been for so many years prior, even if we cannot hold the distribution indoors yet. We will have plenty of volunteers outside to load the vehicles of those driving up or to provide bags to those walking up. Pre-registration is not required for the event. Anyone picking up will be asked to provide the zip code and family size of the household they are picking up for.

Based on the number of requests for assistance we are seeing at our daily programming, we expect to serve more individuals and families than ever before at each Thanksgiving event. We are doing our best to prepare for this increase; however, supply chain issues and inflation are impacting us just as strongly as they are the rest of the country. We have ordered enough to provide Thanksgiving groceries to 3,500 families. The total cost for that is expected to be over $200,000 this year. We humbly ask for your continued support as we work to continue this longstanding, valued, and desperately needed Scranton tradition. Any amount helps as we come together as a community to fill this gap.

Anyone who is able may sponsor a family of four this Thanksgiving for $50 by mailing a donation to Family to Family, PO Box 13, Scranton, PA 18503 or going online to friendsofthepoorscranton.com. Family to Family should be the selected fund from the dropdown box on the donation page, or it can be referenced in the comments.

Additionally, if any businesses or community groups would like to participate in the hot meal portion of our programming, we are actively in need of several bulk food items, some miscellaneous supplies, and monetary donations for the 160 Thanksgiving turkeys we ordered for the meal. Please contact us via email (friendsofthepoor@fotp-ihm.org) or phone (570-340-6086) if you can help support the event in any way.