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FEATURED EVENTS
Turkey Trot
A Thanksgiving Tradition Rooted in Franklin Park
Since its launch in 2013, the Franklin Park Turkey Trot has grown from a neighborhood 5K into the largest Thanksgiving Day race in the City of Boston. Hosted by the Franklin Park Coalition, the annual event brings together runners, walkers, families, community organizations, and neighbors for a Thanksgiving morning tradition in the heart of Boston’s largest park. In recent years, participation has grown to more than 2,500 people, with many returning year after year.
Empower Growth
The Turkey Trot was created not simply as a running event, but as a way to bring people into Franklin Park, build community, and support the park’s future.
Participants come primarily from the surrounding neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, and Mattapan, while the event welcomes people from across Boston and beyond. Runners and walkers of different ages, abilities, and experience levels share the course, with strollers and wheelchairs welcomed as part of the event.
The race also serves as an important fundraiser for the Franklin Park Coalition, supporting its work to engage residents through park programming, stewardship, restoration, and advocacy. Over the years, Turkey Trot proceeds have helped support initiatives ranging from youth conservation efforts and volunteer programs to community events and recreational activities.
Empower Growth
Perhaps the Turkey Trot’s greatest impact is the community it creates. On a morning traditionally centered around gathering with family and friends, Franklin Park becomes a gathering place for Boston itself. The event brings together people across neighborhoods, generations, cultures, and fitness levels around a shared experience of movement, celebration, and connection.
For many families and running groups, participating has become an annual tradition. The event also creates an important space for representation within Boston's running community, including participation from groups such as Black Girls Run and runners from communities of color surrounding Franklin Park. As one participant described the event, it is “multiethnic, multiage, multiability, and it’s fun!”
More than a 5K, the Franklin Park Turkey Trot demonstrates what Franklin Park has long represented: a public space where Boston can come together, be active, build relationships, and create traditions that belong to everyone.
