It’s that time of year when all the money you’ve poured into your stomach over the past few months finally pays off.

Stores are putting on their best Oprah impressions to celebrate getting us to dole out half our paychecks on eggs, coffee, bananas each week.

You get a turkey! You get a turkey. Everybody (who) gets a turkey!

Full disclosure: I’ve been a vegetarian for more than half of my life. My husband doesn’t even like turkey. Most years we’ve simply skipped out on that frozen bird because there’s just one person in the house who wants to partake on the big day … and they can only eat so much turkey before they decide to stage a rebellion.

But here’s what really gets me about this whole Thanksgiving setup — we’ve turned a holiday about being grateful for what we have into a competition to see who can cram the most food onto one table or stuff.

The irony isn’t lost on me that we’re celebrating abundance while folks right here in Sullivan County are trying to figure out how to put any meal at all on their table, turkey or otherwise.

There are families across this county looking at Thanksgiving dinner and doing some hard math. The kind of math where a turkey — even on sale — just doesn’t fit into the budget.

How about this year, instead of letting that coupon expire or watching another frozen bird take up residence in the back of the freezer (you know it’s back there from 2023, don’t lie), what if we actually did something with this manufactured generosity? What if we take these birds the grocery stores are practically begging us to take and make sure they land on tables where they’d actually mean something?

Here’s the good news: There are plenty of ways to do exactly that, and they’ll fit right in between planning your pies and sourcing your cranberry sauce.

The Sullivan Central Rotary Club has made handing over your frozen bird about as easy as it can be. Just send the phone number associated with your ShopRite card to Sullivancentralrotaryclub@gmail.com, and members of the club will do all the hard work. They’ll pick up your turkey, and work with the United Way, Sullivan County BOCES, or the Federation for the Homeless to ensure it’s given to a family in need.

Several local school districts are collecting the fixings for Thanksgiving meals to prepare baskets that will be donated to students and their families. Call the main office, and they’ll be able to route you to the right department to talk turkey.

The Sullivan Fresh Community Cupboard run out of the Cornell Cooperative Extension office in Liberty is open Tuesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to noon (excluding holidays). Not only do they collect fresh food from local farms for folks in need, but they also collect pantry staples, and their refrigerated van will deliver that turkey right to the doorstep of someone who will put it to good use.

Although most local food pantries typically ask donors to stick to non-perishable items, some are making exceptions for the holiday season. To find a pantry in your neck of the woods, visit https://link.edgepilot.com/s/7464878a/DkfCiSTh7kK2c4Vzruk79g?u=https://regionalfoodbank.net/find-nearest-agency/

It’s easy to get swept up in the holiday planning process and forget the reason for the season. But while we’re all getting swept up in the holiday build-up, maybe we can pause long enough to make sure our neighbors get to sit down to a proper Thanksgiving dinner too.