Thanksgiving Food Help in Santa Clara County 2026: Free Groceries and Holiday Food Boxes

Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, November 26, 2026 — and the time to line up food help is now, in early November. Holiday distributions are first-come, first-served at many sites, and the phone lines get jammed the week of the holiday. One call this week can put a full holiday meal on your table.

Start here: Second Harvest’s Food Connection hotline

Second Harvest of Silicon Valley is the region’s food bank. It supplies free groceries to nearly 400 nonprofit partners at more than 900 sites across Santa Clara and San Mateo counties — close to 1 in 6 people in the two counties gets food through this network each month.

Food Connection hotline: 1-800-984-3663
Monday–Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

• Staff speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tagalog, and interpretation is available for other languages.
• Tell them your ZIP code and they will find grocery distributions near you, including sites handing out holiday food in November.
• They can also help you apply for CalFresh (food benefits on an EBT card) — worth asking about on the same call, since CalFresh helps every month, not just on holidays.
• You can also search distribution sites yourself on Second Harvest’s Get Food page at shfb.org.

Second Harvest is heading into this holiday season with more demand than usual — the food bank has said publicly that it entered the critical holiday giving season facing a funding deficit while serving about 500,000 people a month. That is one more reason to call early: the earlier you connect, the more choices you have.

Holiday food boxes: Sacred Heart Community Service

Sacred Heart Community Service, 1381 S. First St, San Jose

Sacred Heart is one of San Jose’s best-known doors for food help, and the holidays are its biggest season. For Holiday 2026, Sacred Heart’s goal is to share 8,000 holiday food boxes — plus toys, bikes, and books for kids — with families across Santa Clara County.

What to do:

• Don’t wait for Thanksgiving week. Holiday boxes go to families who are connected with Sacred Heart ahead of time.
• Check Sacred Heart’s holiday page (sacredheartcs.org/holidays26) for this season’s sign-up and distribution details, or go in person to 1381 S. First St to ask how to receive a holiday food box.

Your early-November game plan

1. This week: Call Food Connection at 1-800-984-3663 and ask which distributions near your ZIP code will have Thanksgiving food.
2. Same call: Ask about CalFresh. If you qualify, that’s grocery money every month — and applying now means help through Christmas too.
3. This week: Check Sacred Heart’s holiday page and sign up or register in person if your family needs a holiday food box.
4. Before you go anywhere: Confirm the day, time, and what to bring (some sites ask for ID or proof of address; many do not). Bring bags or a cart — holiday boxes are heavy.

Food help is not just for the holidays

If the grocery budget is tight in November, it is probably tight in other months too. CalFresh, free grocery distributions, senior meals, and school food programs run all year.

→ Check what you qualify for — food help and more, in about 3 minutes

See also: Free food in San Jose · CalFresh guide

Note: as of our October 2026 check, Second Harvest and Sacred Heart had not published day-by-day Thanksgiving-week distribution schedules for 2026. The steps above are the reliable route: call Food Connection and check Sacred Heart’s holiday page for the dates as they are posted.