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Jennifer Garner celebrates the holiday season by giving back.
The 53-year-old actress spent Thanksgiving morning volunteering at Midnight Mission’s annual charity lunch on Skid Row in Los Angeles, and shared a video and a kind message on the organization’s official Instagram page.
“My name is Jen, and today, on this wonderful day, I want to thank the Los Angeles community that has been here all my life, taking care of us, our families, everything we do,” she said. “No matter where you live, there are people out there helping feed the food insecure and unhoused. Find them and help them.”
“In downtown Los Angeles, it’s a midnight mission,” Garner continued. “They do a great job of not just feeding, but serving this community with love and dignity and respect and with a mountain of mashed potatoes, because that’s my responsibility.”
“From Hollywood to Skid Row, it’s all about the heart,” the caption read. “Thank you Jennifer Garner for jumping on board with the mashed potato mission and helping us serve Thanksgiving with dignity, hope, and lots of love. #themidnightmission #losangeles #Thanksgiving.”
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Garner also commemorated the day on Instagram, sharing a series of images and clips showing “crazy things I’ve done for my job,” including learning to spin trees and taking horsemanship lessons.
“I am grateful that my job requires me to learn so many things little by little,” she wrote. “I’m grateful to my teachers for being so patient with me, and I’m also grateful to everyone who played with me.”
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This wasn’t Garner’s first Thanksgiving volunteering. Last year, she was joined by Ben Affleck (who they split in 2015 after 10 years of marriage) and their three children – Violet Ann, 19, Seraphina Rose, 16, and Samuel, 13.
“They really enjoy giving back to the community and spending quality time together as a family,” a source told PEOPLE at the time.
Affleck, 53, has also worked with the organization, which started in 1914, for several years. He first learned about it through a parent at one of his children’s schools and had previously been open to people about supporting their efforts.
“I’ve found that you can get a lot out of giving a little bit of your time to other people. I don’t know if it’s going to help them, but I know it’s going to help me,” he said in 2020. “It’s easy to throw up your hands and say you can’t do anything.”
