--- title: Grandma Has Thanksgiving With Teen She Accidentally Invited description: Jamal Hinton, 17, and Wanda Dench, a Phoenix-area grandma, had never met before Thanksgiving but the pair embraced the spirit of the holiday canonical: https://time.com/4582411/grandma-thanksgiving-invite/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-25T21:23:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:38:56.877Z og:title: Grandma Keeps Promise to Have Thanksgiving With Teen She Accidentally Invited og:description: Jamal Hinton and Wanda Dench had never met before their Thanksgiving meal og:url: https://time.com/4582411/grandma-thanksgiving-invite/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Grandma Keeps Promise to Have Thanksgiving With Teen She Accidentally Invited twitter:description: Jamal Hinton and Wanda Dench had never met before their Thanksgiving meal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Grandma Keeps Promise to Have Thanksgiving With Teen She Accidentally Invited  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Nov 25, 2016 9:23 PM UTC  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Nov 25, 2016 9:23 PM UTC Jamal Hinton, 17, and Wanda Dench, a Phoenix-area grandma, had never met before Thanksgiving but the pair embraced the spirit of the holiday this week with Dench welcoming Hinton to her family. Hinton’s invitation to the dinner at first [came entirely by accident](http://time.com/4576345/grandma-thanksgiving-stranger-text/) when Dench texted the 17-year-old meaning to text her own grandson. The two exchanged a few messages before a selfie revealed that Hinton had the wrong number. Nonetheless, the grandma did not revoke the invitation when Hinton asked if he could still come. “Of course you can,” she said. “That’s what grandmas do…feed everyone!” The story quickly exploded on the internet after Hinton [posted](https://twitter.com/RonaldDoee/status/798614847063814148?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw) a screenshot of their exchange on Twitter. “We feel like it was fate that this occurred during such a rough time and right before Thanksgiving,” Wanda’s daughter, Lisa Dench, [told](http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2016/11/24/grandmother-accidental-invite-teen-thanksgiving-arizona/94404048/) the _Arizona Republic_. > [](https://twitter.com/RonaldDoee/status/798614847063814148) Hinton showed up with a pumpkin pie. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4582411/grandma-thanksgiving-invite/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4582411/grandma-thanksgiving-invite/"},"headline":"Grandma Keeps Promise to Have Thanksgiving With Teen She Accidentally Invited","datePublished":"2016-11-25T21:23:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:38:56.877Z","description":"Jamal Hinton and Wanda Dench had never met before their Thanksgiving meal","url":"https://time.com/4582411/grandma-thanksgiving-invite/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Holidays"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4582411/grandma-thanksgiving-invite/","name":"Grandma Keeps Promise to Have Thanksgiving With Teen She Accidentally Invited"}}]}] ```