Today, we’re shining the spotlight on one of the largest Thanksgiving benefits in the country. Since 1979, the Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner has brought the community together to serve thousands of San Antonio seniors, families and individuals in need at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

While the dinner continues to go mobile again this year, we wanted to take a look back at how this massive volunteer-led initiative has impacted the city + what you can expect from this year’s event.

🦃 Impact

The first event served around 200 people but has since grown to serve as many as 25,000 residents.
From food preparation to clean-up, it takes over 4,000 volunteers to make this event possible.

Numerous school districts contribute student-made table decorations and hundreds of students help decorate the convention center every dinner.

Preparations for the dinner began Sunday. | Photo via Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner

🦃 In case you’re wondering what it takes to feed 25,000 people. Here’s a breakdown:

9.400 lbs of turkey
6,250 lbs of stuffing
6,250 lbs of green beans
650 lbs of gravy
4,688 lbs of yams
4,688 lbs of cranberry sauce
25,000 dinner rolls
3,000 pumpkin pies

🦃 2021 Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner

There will be 450 volunteers preparing + delivering meals.
Last year, the dinner delivered about 10,000 meals to the community.
This year, they hope to deliver 12,500 meals on Thanksgiving day.

The Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner hopes to serve the community in-person in 2022. In the meantime, you can continue to donate to this beloved cause year-round on its website.