Thanksgiving Service

Jesuit High School launched its annual Thanksgiving Basket Drive on Monday (Oct. 26) at Convocation in St. Anthony’s Chapel, exactly one month before Thanksgiving.
Director of Community Service Michael Miller ’09 explained to the student body this year’s Basket Drive procedure: Each of Jesuit’s 30 homerooms is challenged with raising $300 or more, which will go toward Thankgiving baskets. The homerooms are assigned four or five specific families (via a local Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay) to provide with a basket, which will be filled with everything needed for a complete Thanksgiving meal for a family.
"Today, we are guaranteeing 125 families from the Boys & Girls Clubs a complete Thanksgiving meal," Miller said. "And we hope to reach at least 150."
The week before Thanksgiving, the money raised by each homeroom will be used to bulk purchase the food and essentials needed to prepare a Thanksgiving meal – cooking pans, stuffing, potatoes, rice, cranberries, vegetables, gravy, and more. All except for the turkeys, which the Jesuit Dads’ Club provides.
In conjunction with the student fundraising efforts, Dads’ Club members will collect turkeys for the baskets at morning drop-off in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
Then, on Sunday, November 22, more than 100 Jesuit students and many of their family members will attend 10:00am Mass at St. Anthony’s Chapel, and then head to the cafeteria for breakfast and to prepare the baskets. At Noon, they will deliver baskets to local Boys & Girls Clubs, and some baskets will be delivered directly to the homes of families in need.
Miller said the theme for this year’s Basket Drive is “Dear Lord, teach me to be generous,” the first verse of the Prayer for Generosity from St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. Miller encouraged each homeroom to seek the "Magis" and go beyond the $300 goal, in order to provide more for the families, such as supermarket gift cards.
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