This is home for Thanksgiving

“This is home,” goes a popular Virginia Tech catchprase. For some students, it really is because they have to stay on the Blacksburg campus for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Since 2022, the year Kevin Pitts became dean of the College of Science, he and his wife, Toni, have hosted a Thanksgiving meal for students who can’t make it home.

The celebration has grown year by year. The first year, the invitation went to science majors, and 75 students took them up on the offer. In 2023, 150 students converged on Hahn Hall South for the meal, and last year, 300 students and guests showed to eat in the Data and Decision Sciences Building.

This time around, Pitts and team decided to extend the offer to every student on campus — undergraduates, graduates, and postdoctoral scholars.

“Let’s open it up,” Pitts said. “I don’t want to find out later that a someone missed a terrific meal and good companionship because they didn’t major in the right subject.”

Pitts just smiled as his goal for this year — as many as 500 students — raised eyebrows with the catering company. And more seating will have to be brought in to the Data and Decision Sciences Building.

“Isn’t the saying ‘There’s always room for one more?’” he joked. “We may be about to find out.”

This year's event is from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 27 in the Data and Decision Sciences Building. If you are an undergraduate, graduate student, or postdoctoral associate and would like to attend this year's event, contact sciencersvp@vt.edu to register by Nov. 20.