About 36 complete Thanksgiving dinners were donated to RWU’s 10^th Annual Turkey Basket Contest on Monday. Complete with a gift card to purchase a turkey, all the fixings and sides, dessert and more, the baskets have been delivered to the Bristol Good Neighbors Soup Kitchen & Food Pantry, a nonprofit organization that distributes them to families in Bristol and Warren.

The Turkey Basket Contest challenges RWU community members to see who can make the most creative and full dinner baskets. Past creations have included Snoopy’s doghouse, a children’s wagon, and the Mayflower – all loaded down with enough fixings to feed a large family on Thanksgiving. Awards are presented for creativity, quantity, and as the people’s choice.

This year’s baskets did not disappoint in creativity or quantity. The swim and diving teams’ multiple baskets (which included a British ship, a turkey-shaped basket covered in feathers, and a basket with a Native American headdress) won the quantity award. Roger Williams sitting at a dinner table with Snoopy and Woodstock earned the Tutorial Support Services the creativity award. And the basket that won the people’s choice award was a beautifully rendered homage to Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree,” made by the Office of Student Affairs.

The judges were President Donald Farish, Maia Farish, associate professor of biology Kerri Warren, and Alice Pasqual from dining services.

The need for help is greater than ever this year, according to Ann Wiard, director of Bristol Good Neighbors: “We are seeing more families with children. The parents are working low-paying jobs – or worse, have been laid off and can't find another job.”

Since 2002, members of the RWU community have donated 640 complete turkey dinners to families in need in Bristol and Warren. The generosity and beauty that goes into these baskets means so much to the families that receive them, according to Wiard. The baskets will be distributed to families on Friday, November 16.