In the spirit of giving, more than 3,000 staff members from The Cheesecake Factory will volunteer to prepare and serve its 17th annual Thanksgiving Day Feast at 13 Salvation Army locations around the United States on Thanksgiving Day .
The full-service, sit down feast will be provided to more than 6,000 low-income individuals and children, who will get to enjoy freshly roasted turkey with all the trimmings and The Cheesecake Factory’s legendary seasonal Pumpkin Cheesecake . The festivities will also feature a Thanksgiving arts & crafts table where children and their families will create fall-inspired headbands and gratitude pie spinners with their own personal messages of thankfulness, and color Thanksgiving themed pages.
“We are honored to be serving our 17 th annual Thanksgiving Day Feast providing a hot Thanksgiving meal to those in need,” says David Overton, founder and CEO of The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated . “We are thankful for our staff members who so generously donate their time every year to create this very special event.”
The Thanksgiving Day Feast is sponsored by The Cheesecake Factory Oscar and Evelyn Overton Charitable Foundation and will be held at select Salvation Army locations in Anaheim , Atlanta , Boston , Chicago , Dallas , Ft. Lauderdale, Houston , Long Island , Los Angeles , Miami , Phoenix , San Francisco , and Washington, D.C.
The annual event is one of many hunger-relief initiatives The Cheesecake Factory supports in its local communities. The company also participates in a nationwide Harvest Food Donation Program in which surplus fresh food from its restaurants is regularly donated to local food rescue operations for distribution to soup kitchens and shelters. Since the program’s inception in 2007, The Cheesecake Factory has donated more than 4.8 million pounds of food.
Additionally, The Cheesecake Factory has donated more than $4.3 million since 2008 to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. The company’s staff members also have donated more than 1.5 million pounds of peanut butter to Feeding America member food banks in the company’s annual Peanut Butter Drive during September’s Hunger Action Month.
