Thanksgiving will be a bit happier — and healthier — for more than 100 families this year, thanks to the efforts of a group of College of Health Sciences students.

Members of the Nutrition Club assembled 140 Thanksgiving baskets and delivered them in a truck borrowed from URI Dining Services to Maplewood Terrace, a low-income housing development in Providence. The group met more than 100 of the families benefiting from the semester-long food drive, giving students the chance to see in person the impact of their work.

“About 120 of the families came to pick up the baskets. They were really great, nice people,” said Elizabeth Nowak, a Nutrition and Food Science major who helped coordinate the drive. “We were really grateful to meet so many families. It was a really rewarding experience.”

Helping families in need has been part of Nowak’s life for years, having worked with her mother to make Thanksgiving baskets every year growing up. She brought the idea to the Nutrition Club, partnering with fellow student Jesse Boukarim, who had worked with the Providence Parks & Recreation Department over the summer. Through his contacts there, the students were able to identify families who would benefit from the drive.

The Nutrition Club worked with the Interfraternity Club, which dedicated this year’s “Greek Week” philanthropy project to helping collect the vegetables, potatoes, stuffing, gravy, desserts and more that make up a proper feast — almost all donated by individual students. The Nutrition and Food Science Department added tin foil turkey pans; East Farm donated fresh squash; and Belmont Market in Wakefield provided apples for the kids. Of course, no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a turkey, so Providence Parks & Recreation donated 140 for the drive.

“We’re all a bunch of college students and we were able to get this done,” Nowak said. “I want to thank Kathy English and Sara Larson for all their help. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Nowak said she plans to organize the Thanksgiving drive next year, and is hoping to expand it. The Nutrition Club is also looking for other ways to contribute to the community, she said.