The Dominican University department of athletics sponsored 26 families through the university's annual Thanksgiving baskets program, providing items for Thanksgiving dinners for local families in need. In total, the Dominican University community collected more than 8,890 items ranging from canned vegetables to non-perishable desserts, bags of rice and beans to boxes of pasta, coffee and juice to bread and rolls and festive napkins to gift cards good towards the purchase of a turkey. The items were divided up for 80 families and delivered to St. Joseph Services before being distributed to families in the Humboldt Park and Austin neighborhoods in Chicago.