What makes this one different is that the food never travels far from that barrel.

The donations are collected from New Almaden neighbors, who each year for the past five or six years—none of the organizers, who are all members of the New Almaden Community Club, can remember exactly when it all began—have received a flyer at their homes asking for food contributions that will stay in their community, helping out those who have fallen on rough times. And the only people to know who gets the baskets are the recipients and Manny, the mailman.

"Nobody gets anything out of it, except knowing that they are doing something to help the community," said Manny Martinez, the community's postal carrier.

"Everybody has a food drive, and this seems a little more personal because this is right here," says Peggy Melbourne, one of the food-basket coordinators.

The anonymity of the recipients appeals to the organizers, and they say they don't do it out of charity or pity. They do it because they know that one day it could be each of them who is struggling.

"I could be in that position at any moment, you never know," says Bonnie Spak, who is known as the laundry-basket lady. Spak, who has lived in Almaden Valley since 1977, doesn't live in New Almaden and isn't involved in organizing the food drive. She got involved when she learned about the program at the post office and started giving laundry baskets to hold the food donations as an extra gift.

"People can always use the basket for something," she says.

Some of the recipients have seemed a little embarrassed, Martinez says, but he said he lets them know that the community is making sure they have a good Thanksgiving.

"I just let [the recipients] know that, 'One day you'll be able to return the favor,'" Martinez says.

Tougher economic times have hit many areas, and it was important to the organizers to keep the offerings close to home.

"Our families in the neighborhood are just families in the neighborhood," said Kitty Monahan, who is one of the organizers. "It's not because they're desperate."

Martinez delivers the food baskets in his own vehicle on his own time to homes that he says he senses have a need to stretch their food dollars just a little bit.

"If it lasts a week, it helps them," he says.

The night before Martinez delivers the baskets, the women who organize the yearly event get together to sort and separate the goods into the brand new laundry baskets, which number anywhere from eight to 12 each year, filling them with jars of peanut butter, jam, canned tuna, beans, vegetables, fruit, cereal and whatever else people have donated, Melbourne says.

"A lot of people concentrate on giving Thanksgiving stuff," she says.

Martinez, who injured a shoulder last year, found the baskets were getting a little too heavy, but he wouldn't surrender the task, says Postmaster Mary Ball, so they got him an assistant to help with the lifting.

"He enjoys it too much," Ball says. "He wouldn't give it up."

Melbourne says that they've been collecting more cash lately, and they divide it up evenly between the baskets and buy gift certificates.

"We always include a gift certificate for turkeys," says Vicky Baird, another organizer.

Martinez and each of the women involved say they don't believe they are doing that much out of the ordinary.

"It's just the community and the community club," Melbourne says. "It's nothing particularly very special."

But while the gift may be small, Martinez says he sees the neighborhood effort as ever present.

"It makes me feel good to know that the community cares about others in the community," he says.