A note from Nick Goodman, co-founder of Kid Connection Thanksgiving:

      Years ago, while serving on an amazing board for a wonderful community service organization
that helped at risk youth and their families, it stood out that more could be done to show love and compassion to those without the platform with which to ask for it.

      One of the many wonderful programs that this organization did was to host a
“Thanksgiving Dinner” for impoverished families on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving.
Asking peer board members why we don’t host the families in need on Thanksgiving Day the
universal response was, “Because we want to spend Thanksgiving with our own families.”  
This is understandable, it is what most in the country do creating cherished memories.

      The thought would not leave my mind “The kids and families being helped know that
Thanksgiving Day is the 4th Thursday of November, not the proceeding Tuesday.”
In consultation with my wife Shelly, and a good friend, we decided that the ones feeling most
forgotten are the children in group homes as part of the foster system. Youth that do not have
families with which to spend the holidays.

      In 2016 the Goodman family chose to share Thanksgiving dinner with some of these children
in hopes to show them collectively and individually that they are remembered. With the support of many other families, each Thanksgiving since has been part of the most emotionally impactful
service we have engaged in. 2023 will be the largest group ever for Kid Connection Thanksgiving, almost double the size of previous years!