Food For Free is always working hard to get food to those who need it. And around the holidays, we try to go out of our way to make sure our clients get a little extra something to make the holidays special.
For Thanksgiving this year, our 150+ Home Delivery clients received a special treat along with their regular delivery: Thanksgiving-themed foods! As many of our Home Delivery clients have limited mobility, preparing a whole turkey can be a big challenge. Instead, we provided our clients with whole chickens so they still had a bird to roast for the holiday without the hassle of wrestling with a big turkey. These bountiful boxes also included juice, a pound of butter, homemade cookies from the Cambridge Rindge & Latin School’s culinary RSTA program, and hand-drawn placemats from students at the Kennedy-Longfellow School—-everything one could want for a festive and delicious Thanksgiving feast!
In addition to giving our Home Delivery clients something special, Food For Free also works to ensure that the local food programs we help stock have special holiday food available for their clients, too. Thanksgiving is the one time of year where Food For Free takes special requests for food items, and most of our partner agencies put in requests for Thanksgiving produce. With enormous help from our friends at Boston Area Gleaners, Food For Free provided potatoes, carrots, squash, collard greens, apples, and onions. Our partner agencies tell us their clients were very excited to have the produce and that the collard greens were especially popular.
Another special project for Food For Free around the holiday season is delivering toys to students at the Kennedy-Longfellow School (K-Lo), one of the elementary schools supported by our Cambridge Weekend Backpack Program. As many families in Cambridge struggle with food insecurity, the holidays can be a stressful time where money for gifts is limited. This year, our friends at Pegasystems Inc. will be donating gifts for students at K-Lo. Each gift will be individually selected based on the child’s age and interests, ensuring big smiles when the gifts are unwrapped. Food For Free staff will be smiling, too, as we love seeing our Operations Director, Ryan, deliver the gifts each year in his trademark Santa hat!
Food For Free is committed to making the holiday season a bit brighter and healthier for families across greater Boston, and we are looking forward to continuing our work building healthy communities in the new year
