Before the Nov. 2024 Thanksgiving holiday, Associated Students Of Central Oregon Community College, student government along with Student Affairs, had its annual Thanksgiving Food Drive, offered to Central Oregon Community College students, which provided them with a Thanksgiving meal through a voucher program. As mentioned by Christy Chaung, administrative assistant for the Vice President of Student Affairs, The program is primarily funded by ASOCC funds, which are part of student fees, which allows for students to take part without having to pay out of pocket.

The Thanksgiving meal included: a frozen turkey and the sides, such as stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, which are generally part of the traditional meal. The frozen turkeys were purchased by ASOCC and the sides were provided by the different departments at COCC.

Depending on the campus location, a students pick up location was different for the Bend campus, they pickup up their complete meal, using their voucher at Local Acres Marketplace who provided both the turkey and sides; for the other campuses, like Redmond, Madras and Prineville students would first get their meal sides at their respective campuses, provided by the COCC faculty, then would be given a voucher to pick up their frozen turkey at Grocery Outlet.

ASCOCC’s President, Thomas Wrisley, whom we spoke to about the outcome of the November food drive this year, said, “It was to my knowledge, substantially more. I think that we served about 150 people during this year’s Thanksgiving Food drive.” In an email sent to COCC faculty, mentioned that last year ASCOCC had given out 125 food bags.