There’s no doubt to us that art has the ability to lift us up and carry us through tough times. Little did we know just how much we’d need art this year. Last November, we began a project to add some visual inspiration to our Family Meals kitchen for the teams of volunteers coming through every week. We knew that we wanted some art for the kitchen. We wanted a modern day equivalent of activist art from the 60s and 70s that inspired generations of people to create change in the world. We searched the internet for inspiration and kept returning to the same images: the work of graphic artist and book author Innosanto Nagara. Inno is perhaps best known for his kids book, “A Is For Activist,” but his extensive portfolio includes inspiring images for a wide variety of social justice causes and organizations.

We reached out to Inno last November to ask if he would consider working with us. He was in the midst of finalizing his next book but he enthusiastically agreed. Working together, we developed ideas for three posters. The posters would represent three of our programs: Food Rescue, School Programs (Weekend Backpack Programs and our School and Summer Markets), and our Home Delivery Program. Our ideas came alive through Inno’s skillful use of color, photography, and Adobe Illustrator.

Our longtime driver’s assistant, Julio, graciously became the model for our food rescue poster while one of our favorite young market volunteers agreed to be the face of our school programs poster. As we were putting the final touches on the last poster for the Home Delivery Program at the beginning of March, something unexpected happened. The final destination for the poster, our Family Meals kitchen, was suddenly shut down due to the COVID crisis. Then our community went into lockdown as the Greater Boston area quickly developed into a COVID-19 hotspot. Our team scrambled to address the sudden and growing hunger crisis. We put in long hours to do what would have seemed impossible to us before the crisis: pull together a completely new, large scale program in just a few days serving almost 2,000 households a week.

Our team was lifted up daily by the hundreds of weekly volunteers who stepped up to help us pack and deliver food as well as distribute meals for local schools. Program recipients expressed their gratitude too. But we still felt the heaviness of the times. So many people needed food and while Food For Free and our partners were doing everything we could, the demand just kept growing. When Inno got in touch to say that our final poster was ready, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

With the Family Meals kitchen closed, we hung the posters around the Food For Free office at 11 Inman St. to inspire our team who were working long and sometimes odd hours to keep everything running seamlessly. As we were inspired by Inno’s art, we thought maybe others may be too. We asked Inno to create versions of the posters that can be easily printed at home. And here they are! If you’d like to have a little Food For Free inspiration at home you can download our posters by clicking on the images below and then printing the larger images that load on a separate page. We hope that our community will enjoy these posters as much as we do!