Coming off their recent Sunday win, the Detroit Lions players and staff joined others in the community to put in a win for Thanksgiving meals for those in need.

On Tuesday, Nov. 11, players and staff joined volunteers from Meijer and the Lineage Foundation for Good in packing Thanksgiving meal kits at Gleaners Community Bank in Taylor.

Volunteers packed canned and dry goods into 3,000 Thanksgiving meal kits.

Those meal kits are part of the Lions’ plans for 10,000 kits – double from last year. Part of what made the meal kits possible is donations from Detroit Lions partners.

For years, the Lions have done Thanksgiving meal initiatives to help those in need. This is the second annual partnership with Grand Rapids-based grocer, Meijer, and the third with Gleaners. As they did last year, Meijer, the exclusive grocery partner for the Lions, is donating all proceeds from this year’s “Raise the Roar” Lions flag sales to the Detroit Lions Foundation, with proceeds tackling food insecurity.

The meal kit packing initiative began a month ago and included Detroit Lions partners AAA – The Auto Club Group (ACG), Delta Airlines, Jiffy Mix, Lineage Foundation for Good and Modern Woodmen of America.

Angela Halverson, director of community giving for Gleaners Community Food Bank, said packing these meal kits on Tuesday represents a “community coming together to help neighbors,” who might be food insecure this time of year.

“The timing is important because Thanksgiving is in a couple of short weeks from now, and we want to make sure that many in southeastern Michigan are going to sit down to a warm meal that they can count on for that Thanksgiving dinner.”

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Halverson said many metro Detroiters will choose between heating their house and purchasing food.

“The Lions are coming together in a partnership with Gleaners to help take one of those worries, ideally off the table,” Halverson told the Free Press.

The 10,000 Thanksgiving meal kits equate to providing more than 330,000 meals. This year the distribution includes metro Detroit food banks as well as those Grand Rapids, Lansing, Saginaw and Traverse City.

Each meal kit includes canned and dry goods. There are green beans, corn, fruit, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, cranberry sauce and Jiffy Mix.

Once the kits make it to distribution sites, there’s an addition of a 3-pound bag of fresh apples from North Bay Produce and a whole turkey.

In the boxes are everything you would want for Thanksgiving from potatoes to produce.

“It’s nutritious and warm comforting food and exactly what we need this time of year,” said Halverson.

For Gleaners Community Food Bank information visit gcfb.org.

Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter. Subscribe to the Eat Drink Freep newsletter for insider scoops on food and dining in metro Detroit.

4Warn Weather – Brutally cold with a few flakes possible Monday night, remaining cold and cloudy for Veterans Day on Tuesday.

Monday night: Decreasing clouds, partly cloudy skies. Low: 23.

Tuesday: Mostly cloudy skies. Continued cold. High: 38.

Tuesday night: Partly cloudy skies. Another cold overnight. Low: 30.

Wednesday: Mostly cloudy skies. High: 46.

Wednesday: Partly cloudy skies. Low: 30.

Teasable elements:

• Wind chills into the single digits and teens out the door on Tuesday Morning

• Well below average temperatures for the next few days

• More clouds than sunshine for Tuesday, more sunshine moves in mid-week

• Dry forecast for most of next week, with warming temperatures by the end of the week

• Next rain chances move in for the upcoming weekend

We’ve seen some snow showers, some clouds, and some sunshine in most locations to start the week, after the snow showers to end the weekend on Sunday.

And we’ve got a few flakes in the forecast for Tuesday before we put winter weather “on pause” for a little while!

As we work through the overnight hours tonight, we will keep some cloud cover in the forecast as we are still dealing with that northwest flow, with snow showers in our Northeastern Communities and a few flurries elsewhere.

Overnight lows dropping into the lower 20s, and expect wind chills into the teens and potentially single digits outside the metro.

We will keep some cloud cover in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, with warmer temperatures starting to move into the region.

High temperatures remaining in the 30s by Tuesday, then into the upper 40s by Wednesday.

Expect a few flurries possible on Tuesday as the northwest flow continues. Gusty winds are expected, gusting upwards of 20-25 MPH on Tuesday as well.

The drier weather continues, looking ahead into the end of next week and the start of next weekend.

We will keep some sunshine and clouds in the forecast for Thursday and into Friday.

High temperatures continue to warm up for everyone. We’re expecting high temperatures into the upper 40s on Thursday, then back into the 50s by Friday.

We will bring more cloud cover into the forecast by the start of next weekend, on Saturday, and high temperatures will continue to warm.

Expect high temperatures into the mid-50s by Saturday afternoon.

Our next chance of rain moves into the region late Saturday night and into the end of the weekend on Sunday.

High temperatures in the mid to upper 50s will fall into the upper 40s after that cold front moves through the region late Sunday.

Mostly cloudy skies are expected for the start of next week on Monday.

Find the latest forecast from the 4Warn Weather team here

Remember to download the free 4Warn weather app — it’s easily one of the best in the nation. Just search your app store under WDIV, and it’s right there, available for both iPhones and Androids! Or click the appropriate link below.

PHILADELPHIA — At halftime of Sunday night’s game at Xfinity Mobile Arena, it looked like the Detroit Pistons would see their five-game winning streak come to a screeching halt.

The hometown Philadelphia 76ers were moving the basketball, hitting shots and playing with a verve that the Pistons — despite being the rested team, having not played the night before, as Philadelphia did — didn’t seem capable of matching.

But then the second half started. And behind a spectacular performance from Cade Cunningham — who scored 24 of his 26 points after the break, including a spectacular dunk over former Piston Andre Drummond in the game’s closing minutes — Detroit secured a 111-108 victory, givingthe franchise its best start to a season in a generation.

“It’s not hard to believe,” Cunningham said when asked whether he was surprised by Detroit’s 8-2 start only two years after its 14-68 season. “Even then, I couldn’t believe that we were in such a low.

“So to be here now, I feel like we’re where we’re supposed to be. We got a lot of guys that have always been big-time players, have always found ways to win at every level, and the NBA is tough. So we got here and we had to figure it out together. We were young, but now we’re getting our foot in and we’re figuring it out.”

It’s a lot easier to figure things out when your team is led by a player like Cunningham, who has backed up last season’s breakout performance — when he made his first All-Star and All-NBA appearances of his career and led Detroit to the playoffs — by leading the league in assists and putting up one impressive performance after another in the early going.

Cunningham had entered Sunday’s game having scored at least 30 points in three consecutive games and in four of Detroit’s last five. But after playing well below his standards in that first half — with just two points on 1-for-9 shooting from the field — he completely flipped things around, allowing Detroit to post its best record through 10 games since starting the 2005-06 season with a 9-1 record.

Cunningham’s 17 points in the third quarter immediately pulled Detroit back into the game after it trailed by as many as 13. And that was before his spectacular dunk over Drummond with just under two minutes to go helped in denying a late push by Tyrese Maxey (32 points, seven assists) and the 76ers (6-4).

“Man, he could get one of those every game,” Jalen Duren(21 points, 16 rebounds) said with a smile. “I don’t know why he doesn’t. But I love it. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of that. His game speaks for itself.

“I continue to say [he’s the] best guard in the NBA, so he going to make plays like that.”

Duren has also taken a massive step forward this season, with Sunday’s game marking the sixth time he has eclipsed 20 points this season. His 19.4 points per game this season dwarfs his averages from last season (11.8) and 2023-24 (13.8).

He has also played a significant role in Detroit’s third-ranked defense through 10 games, and he contributed another two steals and two blocks Sunday while continuing to be one of the league’s most imposing rebounders.

“He’s been dominant,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “The way he helps us protect the rim, the job he does on the boards, the threat that he is in the pick-and-roll and in the pocket … he’s a guy that can connect our group, too. He’s another guy who can facilitate and playmake, and then he’s an elite communicator, which has been a huge growth for him defensively. He’s talking to guys, always in the right spot, so I thought he was great again tonight.”

Cunningham and Duren also share the connection of having lived through that dismal 14-68 season two years ago, when it seemed like the Pistons were miles away from being relevant in the Eastern Conference. But as the league wakes up Monday morning, it will be Detroit looking down at the rest of the conference, and looking up at only one team — the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder — in the league standings.

“I think sky’s the limit,” Duren said when asked about his expectations. “I think we keep following J.B., keep working hard, keep defending, keep playing together … I think sky’s the limit at that point.”

For his part, Cunningham said that even when things were at their lowest ebb two seasons ago, his belief in himself kept him pushing him forward. It is that same belief that won’t allow him to be satisfied with only a good start to the season.

“Yeah, I mean, more than anything, my faith in myself, knowing that I was going to be successful in the NBA, knowing that I was going to do everything it took to be successful,” he said. “And I got lucky and fell into a franchise in the city that has the same mentality that I felt like it took for me to take the next step.

“So it has been a hell of a ride, man. It’s been a lot of ups and downs. It’s still early, though … I’m not above myself because we’re 8-2. I think this [success] is something that we all want, but we want something bigger than this. So we just want to keep our heads down and keep working.”br/]