After a last-minute mistaken textual content invite first introduced them collectively in 2016, Jamal Hinton and Wanda Dench’s viral Thanksgiving custom is reaching a significant milestone.
This 12 months marks the tenth time the unlikely duo will sit down and share a meal for the November vacation—and so they’re celebrating huge with a brand new partnership with Inexperienced Large.
“Ten Thanksgivings in the past, a easy textual content introduced us collectively. This 12 months, we’re celebrating a decade of friendship,” Hinton, 26, wrote on Instagram, asserting the collaboration.
He added that the model is marking its personal centennial—100 years of “bringing folks collectively.” In accordance with a launch, Inexperienced Large will host the Thanksgiving feast alongside Hinton and Dench this 12 months.
“I’m so grateful we’re in a position to proceed to get collectively. I can’t consider it’s been 10 years since that mistaken textual content,” Dench, 68, stated within the launch. “For us, the vacations are all about connections and making recollections. Sharing our tenth 12 months—alongside Inexperienced Large’s one hundredth anniversary—makes this 12 months really feel particularly significant.”
The viral annual custom first started in 2016 after Dench, then in Arizona, mistakenly texted Hinton, then 17, inviting him to her Thanksgiving dinner that 12 months. After she realized her error—and likewise that he had no plans—she notably stated the supply to attend nonetheless stood. Hinton took her up on it and has been spending the vacation together with her household ever since.
Their first serendipitous encounter shortly went viral on-line, shifting folks all around the world with its easy present of human kindness. It’s all the time struck folks how two whole strangers had been in a position to join so naturally—that not solely was he in want of a spot to go, however he was met with a simple heat and openness that felt meant to be.
Their story has since impressed tens of millions and even caught Hollywood’s consideration: a Netflix film about their friendship is at present within the works.
This 12 months additionally marks their second main partnership. In 2023, Dench and Hinton teamed up with Airbnb to give the chance to win an opportunity to have Thanksgiving dinner with them.
“I felt like nearly because the first 12 months we had been a household,” Hinton stated throughout an interview with NBC Information in 2024.
Through the years, they’ve continued to heat hearts with their annual updates, whilst their households and lives have modified. Because the custom started, Dench’s husband, Lonnie, died in 2020 resulting from COVID-19 problems early on within the pandemic, and in October 2024, she revealed she had been present process remedy for breast most cancers. Hinton rallied help for her on the time by means of his rising platform and even took over internet hosting duties for a change.
By way of all of the transformation—and even a digital Thanksgiving final 12 months on account of Dench’s therapies—they’ve managed to maintain the custom alive.
“I really feel like if I’d by no means met her, I’d have a bit of me lacking in a bizarre means,” Hinton advised NBC Information. “I might have by no means identified what that piece was, however I really feel like that piece of me is stuffed.”
