FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kansas — Nearly 130 Thanksgiving meals, complete with turkey, sides, dessert and more, were distributed to military families Nov. 18, 2025, at the Fort Leavenworth Commissary.
Operations Chaplain (Maj.) Christopher Weinrich said the annual meal distribution tradition is possible because of the Fort Leavenworth and chapel communities who support service members and their families with time and monetary contributions.
“In the military, we have a tradition to help out our service members and families, especially around holiday time, and Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, all these major holidays is a really big time to help out our soldiers,” Weinrich said. “This is something that's great that the military loves to do. I think the community, and especially right now with finances, with the furlough ending and everything else, it's good we want to support our community.”
Weinrich said that command teams, who signed up service members in their units to receive the Thanksgiving meals, really want to support the post’s service members. He referred to them as the heroes of the meal tradition, making sure that their troops receive the food baskets.
Meals were distributed to lower enlisted service members through mid-level NCOs with families assigned to Army Corrections Brigade, Mission Command Training Program, Combined Arms Command – Training, Munson Army Health Center, Fort Leavenworth Garrison, 67th Military Working Dog Detachment/Law Enforcement Activity and Kansas City Recruiting Battalion. The size of the turkeys and meal components varied depending on the number of dependents.
Fort Leavenworth Commissary Store Director Anthony Gardner said Commissary patrons responded to the need.
“They definitely have donated more this year. I think it's because of the furlough process that went on, so you had more customers (who) donated.”
Gardner said about 400 customers donated items to fill the bags, 150 donated money to help complete the mission, and the Commissary’s produce vendor, Liberty Foods, donated potatoes, celery and onions. The turkeys were purchased with chapel offerings.
Gardner said just the sides, not counting the turkey, would cost a family at least $60.
“This is the best turnout that we have (had) — we have 127 baskets … that we're giving out from ranges from two dependents all the way up to eight dependents, which is pretty remarkable. A family the size of eight will get eight cans of vegetables, eight cans of green beans, eight cans of corn, four bags of stuffing… three broths, three cream of mushroom soups and two cranberry sauces and four gravies, so it's a good basket,” he said, noting that families also received pumpkin pies and topping and they will likely have plenty of leftovers.
The food “baskets,” actually distributed in paper bags, were assembled by volunteers, which included active-duty service members and supporting organizations, earlier that morning. More volunteers showed up in the afternoon to help distribute the meals to service members.
Holiday meal baskets will also be distributed in mid-December ahead of Christmas.
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