Over 15,000 fed this Thanksgiving by Gina’s Giving Back

PEABODY — Just over 15,000 people in need are receiving free Thanksgiving meals this week thanks to the annual efforts of Peabody resident Gina Goodwin and her family through their nonprofit, Gina’s Giving Back.

This week, cars and trucks have regularly lined up outside of Goodwin’s home in Peabody’s Huntington Woods development to pick up turkeys, hams, cookies, stuffing and everything else a table needs for a scrumptious holiday meal.

Some dinners are going to homeless shelters, halfway houses and nursing homes, while others will feed homeless veterans, families who are struggling financially and even residents in Lewiston, Maine, who were affected by a mass shooting that killed 18 people there last month.

“It was really emotional,” Goodwin said, surrounded by bags of food in her kitchen Tuesday. “A giant truck came and we sent about 25 turkeys, 25 hams and 50 boxes of stuffing.”

This year marks a decade since Goodwin started the holiday tradition. Back then, she donated meals to 10 patients she and her husband cared for as visiting nurses after learning they would be the only faces the patients saw on Thanksgiving.

Today, she gives out thousands of meals — with this year’s demand the highest she’s seen so far.

“I’m still getting orders,” she said Tuesday. “Someone just called, asking to pick up two dinners tonight.”

It takes a community to carry out the project each year. Goodwin’s children help gather and carry food to people’s cars. Local businesses and schools donate food — most importantly turkeys — and volunteers help deliver meals to those who can’t come get them themselves.

This includes young players from the North Suburban Wings hockey team out of Middleton. Joseph Ingalls, 12, and his mom picked up several dozen meals from Goodwin’s home Tuesday that the team dropped off around the North Shore that night.

“It’s just fun giving back,” said Joseph, adding that people are always happy when he hands them a bag full of holiday food.

The team has dropped off food instead of practice on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving for four years, his mother Janelle Ingalls said.

“They really enjoy spending the night delivering meals and putting smiles on everybody’s faces and helping everybody out,” she said. “It’s just amazing because they see that there’s more than just hockey.”

The demand for meals from Goodwin’s nonprofit has skyrocketed over the last several years, especially during the pandemic, when so many people were struggling, Goodwin said. She fed 7,300 people last year, but this year’s number has more than doubled.

She does it to not only help people in need, but also inspire her seven adopted children.

“We want them to understand that they’re the lucky ones,” her husband Ed Goodwin said. “They could have been bounced from house to house in foster care. and this teaches them the importance of giving back.”

Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com

‘; var element = document.getElementById(“sub_message”); element.appendChild(subMessage); console.log(“Code Loaded!”); } else { var subMessage = document.createElement(‘div’); subMessage.id = ‘sub-message-top’; subMessage.class = ‘panel panel-default’; subMessage.style.backgroundColor = ‘#eee’; subMessage.style.borderRadius = ‘5px’; subMessage.style.padding = ’10px’; subMessage.style.marginTop = ’25px’; subMessage.style.marginBottom = ’25px’; subMessage.innerHTML = ‘Support local journalism.Subscribe Today’; var element = document.getElementById(“sub_message”); element.appendChild(subMessage); console.log(“Code Loaded!”); } }