Every year, around this time, people start thinking about all the turkey they’re going to eat, the days they will take off from work to be with family and other small gifts for which they are grateful, and they remember those less fortunate. Local soup kitchens and other downtown nonprofits prepare for this outpouring of good will with plenty of special Thanksgiving week volunteer opportunities. We’ve compiled them here, along with ongoing volunteer efforts that could use your help this Thanksgiving and all year long.

The Bowery Mission’s Red Door Hunger Drive
The mission? Serve 9,000 meals to the homeless and hungry during Thanksgiving week. They are also collecting food and donations for “blessing bags” full of practical cold-weather items, which they give to each guest who passes through. They already have all the volunteers they need to serve meals, but you can still register to raise funds as an individual or with a team. Visit support.bowery.org to sign up or find out what to donate (you can drop off food at the Bowery Mission 24/7).

Feeding NYC says ‘Adopt a Box’
This nonprofit delivers complete meals to thousands of families living in shelters around the city on Thanksgiving. They already reached capacity for volunteers, but you can still “adopt a box” of food by donating money. Visit feedingnyc.org to find out how.

Day-after-Thanksgiving Celebration at Visions
After you’ve already feasted, you can help blind and visually impaired tenants of this specialized building celebrate their Thanksgiving. Help decorate, assist seniors and serve meals. Friday, Nov. 23, 3 – 8 p.m. Visions at Selis Manor, 135 W. 23rd St.
646-486-4444.

Hurricane Sandy Recovery Efforts (various locations)
You’ve seen how bad things are in Far Rockaway and other areas, and you’re eager to get on the ground, get your hands dirty and help out. The best way to get involved is to contact shelters and resource distribution centers that have been helping to coordinate the aid efforts. Their information is below:

CAAAV
This Chinatown-based organization has been on the ground since day one of the hurricane and has since focused its efforts on sites that were hit harder than the Lower East Side. They will announce volunteer opportunities on their website, which may include events during Thanksgiving week.

Occupy Sandy Recovery
This group is linked to many local organizations and recommends that before visiting a site that requires volunteers, you visit one of the two main volunteer intake and distribution centers, located in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and Sunset Park, Queens, respectively. These sites collect donations as well. After orientation, you can help at the distribution center or get dispatched to another site.

Visit interoccupy.net/occupysandy for up-to-the-minute information about what they need on the ground. You can also purchase specific goods in high demand to be delivered directly to New Jersey, Staten Island and the Rockaways by using the site’s “Wedding Registry.”

The headquarters of Nazareth Housing, at 206 E. Fourth St., narrowly avoided major damage. Michael Callaghan, executive director of the nonprofit group that works on housing rights and homelessness prevention, said that now they’re frenetically coordinating donated supplies and volunteers.

“I think the biggest problem is heat,” said Callaghan. “There is still public housing that doesn’t have electricity and heat. They’re not letting people go in and see how the residents are because they don’t want to be sued.”

He said that volunteers have been routing incoming supplies to some of the hardest-hit areas of the outer boroughs, like the Rockaways in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn, but they’re also still concerned about local downtown residents.

At the Hester Street offices of CAAAV, a pan-Asian community-based organization, executive director Helena Wong said that their role in helping has evolved day to day since Sandy struck.

“Every day has been a little bit different, we started off just providing a way for people to charge their phones and handing out what donations were coming in,” Wong said. “When FEMA came, the next day we started to go into buildings and prioritize the seniors and folks who have trouble getting around.”

Wong said that they’re now using their offices primarily as a donation drop-off center while trying to work with local residents who haven’t been able to get in touch with their landlords in order to get their boilers switched on.

Some organizations have had to overcome their own major hurdles in order to help. At GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side), a neighborhood housing and preservation organization, their office at 171 Ave. B was in evacuation Zone A and is still without functioning phone lines or heat.

Damaris Reyes, the executive director, said that she and most of her staff also live in the flood zone, but that they still “managed to coordinate a massive relief effort with approximately 3,000 volunteers and thousands of donations.”

This week, staffers corralled volunteers to bring food, water, flashlights, batteries and information to seniors and disabled people who were trapped on high floors of buildings without power.

“About 50 percent of the residents don’t have heat and hot water, about 20 buildings still don’t have electricity, and most folks don’t have working phone lines,” Reyes said.

At the Bowery Mission, their shelter has been operating at over three times its normal capacity, housing over 150 people, and they kept hot meals coming all through the power outage with a donated generator and a mass of extension cords.

“We were the only lights on the Bowery for a few nights there,” said James Winans, the director of development.

They’ve received an outpouring of support and have been also operating a mobile kitchen on Avenue D between Fourth and Fifth streets, giving out hot meals. Winans said that while they’re focusing on how to help Sandy victims in the immediate future, he’s also concerned about facing the holiday season with depleted resources.

“This is a critical time of year for us any year, because we always do a significant weeklong outreach during the week of Thanksgiving and typically serve about 5,000 people,” Winans said.

He’s confident, though, that downtown residents will step up to fill in the gaps in resources. Helena Wong said that she saw firsthand how important it is to have local, tapped-in neighbors helping after a disaster, because they can often get straight to work, where larger organizations are more cumbersome.

“The Red Cross, the agency that is most known for disaster relief, was coming to us to know what to do,” Wong said. “Local organizations really know the community and should be supported to do the work that we do best.”