Shoppers and soup kitchens make final preparations for Thanksgiving

The turkeys were thawed, and final preparations were being made ahead of the big feast.

From folks who were hosting Thanksgiving for their families to organizations that planned to feed the less fortunate, the day before Thanksgiving was a busy one.

If you’re hosting or bringing a dish, there’s always something you forget to pick up.

A steady trickle of last-minute shoppers filed into Village Market in the Oakland hills, the night before Thanksgiving.

Chris Hughes bought his entire meal the night before, including the bird.

"You know, we’re working like crazy," Hughes said. "This is like the only time we’re thinking about it is right here in the grocery store."

Hughes found a fresh turkey because he didn't have time for it to thaw.

When it comes to procrastinating, he’s not alone.

"Yes, I’m a last-minute person for sure, yeah," Isis Brown said. 

Brown and her sisters were shopping for all the ingredients to whip up some truffle mac and cheese.

"This is my aunt’s recipe that I messed up last year, but I’m going to do it better this time," Brown said.

Across the bay at the social justice organization GLIDE, in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, the team is getting ready to serve up a feast for the less fortunate.

This would be their first Thanksgiving indoors since COVID hit three years ago.

Aside from the daily grab-and-go lunch bags, the team cooked 100 turkeys or 1,200 lbs.

They were expecting about 2,500 people, including many families struggling with food insecurity.

"We’re like family. So, a lot of the same folks from the community come in," Jean Cooper, chief impact and strategy officer of GLIDE told KTVU.

Many have been coming for years.

"We’ve had people that have come here straight out of prison or off the streets, and we’ve hired them here at GLIDE, and they’ve become some of our most important and stable teammates," Cooper said.

Back at the market, those cooking for a smaller group were making do with what they could still find in stock.

Others like Raphael Suter have it made.

"I don’t cook, I clean. It’s a good trade-off," Suter said. 

If you are still not prepared to cook everything on your list, some stores like the Safeway in Alameda will be open on Thanksgiving from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m.