On Thanksgiving Day more than 3,000 staff members from The Cheesecake Factory will volunteer to prepare and serve its 18th annual Thanksgiving Day Feast in 13 cities across the United States.
The full-service, sit down feast will be provided to more than 6,000 low-income individuals who will be served freshly roasted turkey with all the trimmings and The Cheesecake Factory’s famous seasonal Pumpkin Cheesecake. The festivities will also include a Thanksgiving arts & crafts table where children and their families can create fall-inspired headbands, and color Thanksgiving-themed pages.
“We are so pleased to be serving our 18th annual Thanksgiving Day Feast providing a hot 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 volunteer their time each year to help create this very special event. It is a wonderful example of their dedication to living our shared purpose of nurturing bodies, minds, hearts and spirits.”
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 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 5.3 million pounds of food.
Additionally, The Cheesecake Factory has donated more than $4.6 million since 2008 to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization with a nationwide network of local food banks. The company’s staff members also have donated more than 1.8 million pounds of peanut butter to Feeding America member food banks as part of the company’s annual Peanut Butter Drive during Hunger Action Month each September.
