Viral Dollar Store dinner creator offers sweet Thanksgiving message of gratitude and hope
In the true spirit of Thanksgiving, a video that has surged to millions of social media feeds is helping food insecure families across the country get a full holiday meal on the table without breaking the bank.
One Virginia woman's viral TikTok has inspired home cooks on a tight budget seeking a truly affordable Thanksgiving dinner to recreate her 10 ingredient recipe for just $12.
Rebecca Chobat, creator of @dollartreedinners, soared to viral status for her Thanksgiving casserole recipe that's amassed nearly 6 million views in just four days.
Dollar Tree Dinners creator opens up about viral Thanksgiving casserole recipe
Chobat, who first began sharing her content on YouTube in 2021, told "Good Morning America" she catapulted to new heights on social media when her "third video on Tiktok ever ... went viral in June 2022."
"In that time, I went from zero to a million [followers] in less than a year," she recalled.
More recently, Chobat shared recipes using Dollar Store ingredients for affordable apple pie cookie bars, crispy macaroni and cheese bites and a single-pan dish that boasts all the best flavors of Thanksgiving, made with canned turkey, green beans, instant mashed potatoes, gravy, dried cranberries and boxed stuffing. Altogether, her now-viral holiday meal fits a $20 budget.
Her followers have been active in the comments section sharing their gratitude for her recipes, with one follower writing, "You just saved my thanksgiving," and another calling her account "life-changing."
One viewer, Caleb Demeny -- a 30-year-old content creator from Houston, Texas -- recognized Chobat's impact firsthand while shopping at Dollar Tree when he spotted a fellow customer with a familiar cart of ingredients.
"I had been watching [Chobat's] videos the night before," he told "Good Morning America," adding that when he walked past the woman, he noticed her cart had "all the ingredients for this dinner."
"I just kind of told her -- 'I'm struggling too, I'm going to make it too,'" he recalled. "I didn't want to feel like shame over it or anything. And we ended up having a really good conversation."
The woman, who did not wish to be identified, told Demeny at the store she randomly found Chobat's page and that the "videos have helped her a lot -- she wanted to give her kids a real Thanksgiving dinner this year."
"It was a really cool thing to see that," he told "GMA." "Because when you really think about it, it actually is more budget friendly, regardless of what your tax bracket is."
Demeny shared his retelling of the Dollar Tree interaction on TikTok to amplify the direct positive impact Chobat is having.
"I want her to know that her videos are helping people," he said before sharing the full story.
Chobat told "GMA" she gets tagged in other users' videos recreating her recipes "fairly frequently," but was shocked to see the notification from Demeny.
"I was like, 'Oh my God, I know him. I watch his videos,'" she said. "Here he was talking about me, this lady who makes Dollar Tree meals, and telling the story."
When she first watched his anecdote, she said "it had less than like 10,000 views -- so I did not expect it to have the traction that it got."
"I started noticing my engagement going up, my comments were going up, my following count was going up. I checked his video again -- a few hours later -- and it was in the 200,000 mark," she continued. "By the time I woke up the next morning, it had over 5 million views, and I had gone up almost 300,000 subscribers overnight."
How a viral, affordable Dollar Tree Thanksgiving dinner video changed one creator's perspective
Chobat told "GMA" that Demeny's video referencing her meals "really put it into perspective that I don't just make this content for fun, but I hope that somebody out there benefits from it."
She continued, "Here was this actual practical application of the things that I talk about, and people who rely on this information to provide a holiday dinner for their families."
As for what Chobat wants to share with the unidentified mother who was shopping to make the viral meal, she said, "I just want to tell her that I hope her and her kids have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner."
"I hope they enjoy all of the recipes, and thank you so, so much for supporting me and my channel," she added. "I hope every single day that there is somebody out there who benefits from the information that I put out. And most importantly, I hope your kids enjoy their Thanksgiving dinner."
