🦃🍂 UGLY Start Thanksgiving Giveback Drive 2026 🍂🦃

Help us prepare Thanksgiving meals and care kits for people experiencing homelessness. 💙🧡

This Thanksgiving, UGLY Start Outreach is bringing our young people, mentors, volunteers, and community together to give back.

Through our Thanksgiving Giveback Drive, we will:

🍽️ Prepare Thanksgiving meals

🧤 Assemble practical care kits

📦 Package food and supplies

🤝 Serve through our planned shelter and community outreach

💙 Give our young people an opportunity to serve and lead

This project is about more than providing a meal.

Our young people will have the opportunity to practice:

✨ Teamwork

💵 Budgeting

👨‍🍳 Cooking and meal preparation

🌱 Leadership

❤️ Compassion

🤝 Community service

🌎 Giving back to others

Your support helps make all of this possible.

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🛒 WHAT WE’RE COLLECTING

🦃 Thanksgiving Meal Items

We are accepting new, unopened and unexpired nonperishable food items, including:

🍚 Rice

🥣 Boxed stuffing

🥔 Instant mashed potatoes

🧀 Boxed macaroni and cheese

🥫 Canned vegetables

🥫 Gravy

🍒 Cranberry sauce

🌽 Cornbread mix

🍪 Dessert items

💧 Bottled water

🛒 Other unopened nonperishable food items

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🧤 Care Kit Essentials

Help us create practical care kits for people experiencing homelessness.

We are collecting:

🧦 New socks

🧤 Gloves

🧢 Knit hats

🪥 Toothbrushes

🦷 Toothpaste

🧻 Baby wipes or cleansing wipes

🤧 Tissues

💋 Lip balm

💧 Bottled water

🥜 Granola bars

🍪 Crackers

🥨 Individually packaged snacks

🔥 Hand warmers

📦 Other useful new, unopened items

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🍽️ Serving & Packaging Supplies

We also need supplies to prepare and distribute the meals:

🥡 Takeout containers with lids

🍽️ Heavy-duty plates

🥄 Plastic utensils

🧻 Napkins

🥤 Cups

📦 Aluminum foil

🥘 Foil pans

🛍️ Food-storage bags

🧤 Disposable gloves

🧻 Paper towels

🗑️ Trash bags

Please donate new, unopened and unexpired items.

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💰 CAN’T DONATE AN ITEM?

You can still help!

Financial donations will be used toward Thanksgiving meal ingredients, care-kit essentials, serving supplies, bottled water, snacks and other outreach needs.

Suggested Giving Levels

💙 $10 | Giveback Supporter

Helps purchase food, snacks or care-kit items.

🧡 $25 | Care Kit Supporter

Helps provide several practical care-kit essentials.

💙 $50 | Meal & Outreach Supporter

Helps purchase food and packaging supplies.

🧡 $100 | Community Giveback Supporter

Helps support multiple meals and care kits.

🌟 $250+ | Thanksgiving Giveback Sponsor

Provides larger support toward food, care kits, supplies and outreach costs.

Every amount helps. No contribution is too small.

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🙋‍♀️🙋🏽‍♂️ WANT TO VOLUNTEER?

We would love to have you join us as we prepare for our Thanksgiving Giveback!

Please complete the volunteer form below so we can learn your availability and how you’d like to help. We’ll follow up with confirmed roles, dates, times, locations, and instructions.

Click Here to Join Our Thanksgiving Giveback Volunteer Team

There will be several ways to help throughout the project.

Volunteer opportunities may include:

🛒 Shopping

🥘 Meal preparation

👨‍🍳 Cooking

🎁 Care-kit assembly

🥡 Packaging meals

📦 Loading supplies

🚗 Transportation support

🍽️ Serving

🤝 Community outreach

🧹 Setup and cleanup

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🏢 BUSINESSES & COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Local businesses and organizations can also help make this outreach possible.

Ways to support include:

💵 Financial sponsorships

🎁 Gift cards

🥫 Food donations

🧦 Care-kit supplies

🥡 Serving and packaging supplies

👥 Volunteer teams

📦 In-kind products or services

For sponsorship or partnership opportunities:

📧 info@uglystart.org

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🎃 BRING YOUR DONATION TO BOO BASH!

You can also bring your Giveback Drive donations directly to our upcoming community event.

📅 Friday, October 30, 2026

⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

📍 Lowell Recreation Center

715 N Main St

Lowell, NC

We’ll be collecting:

🥫 Thanksgiving meal items

🧦 Care-kit essentials

🥡 Serving and packaging supplies

💵 Financial donations

Come enjoy Boo Bash and help us prepare to give back this Thanksgiving! 🍂💙🧡

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❤️ TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Every contribution helps us create a meaningful Thanksgiving experience for people experiencing homelessness while giving our young people an opportunity to serve, lead and make a difference in their community.

Thank you for helping UGLY Start give back this Thanksgiving. 🦃🍂💙🧡

UGLY Start Thanks-Giveback Drive 2026