A volunteer-run Thanksgiving bag drive is collecting meal donations for its eighth year across all 14 Fort Mill School District schools. Organizers hope to surpass the 250 families the program reached in 2025, YoCo News reported Oct. 1.

The drive started in 2019 with 40 families at three schools. Lindsay Gore and Christy Tolentino co-founded the project after seeing families near them struggling during the holidays, according to a 2024 WRHI report on the drive. By 2024, the effort had delivered 168 dinners. Last year it hit 250.

Residents can help two ways. They can sponsor a complete meal bag for $65 by sending payment via Venmo to Tolentino (@Christy-Tolentino), and a group of volunteers will handle the shopping and assembly. Or they can pick up an empty bag with a shopping list at Tega Graze, fill it themselves and return it by Monday, Nov. 16.

Empty bags will be available at Tega Graze starting Monday, Nov. 2. The shop is at 2879 Highway 160 W in Fort Mill, inside Southlake Shopping Center.

Each bag holds shelf-stable ingredients for a full Thanksgiving dinner: instant gravy, stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, green beans, corn, yams, instant mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie filling, a graham cracker pie crust and iced tea bags. A $40 Walmart or Visa gift card goes in each bag so the family can buy its own meat. Donors who fill their own bags can add extras.

School counselors across the district identify the recipient families. Once bags are returned and volunteers finish packing the sponsored ones at Tega Graze, the bags go to each school. Families pick them up at their child's school before Thanksgiving on Nov. 26.

"We started this project after realizing that there were families just a few miles from us who were really struggling, especially during the holidays," Gore told WRHI in October 2024, when the drive was in its sixth year. "We wanted to help, and Thanksgiving was the next holiday on the calendar."

In a letter to community partners this fall, organizers wrote that the need continues to grow and that they want to keep the support local. Donations from businesses, churches and residents have expanded the program each year since its founding.

Sponsorships and filled bags are due by Monday, Nov. 16. Tega Graze is open Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.