Dear friends and supporters,

Every day seems like a week—so much is happening so quickly. We want to keep you informed and also understand you may be inundated with COVID-19 updates at this point. We’ve created a page where we will maintain frequent updates. Please feel free to check it regularly as not all of that information will appear in emails.

We have heard from so many of you and it’s clear to me that we have this enormous, virtual team out there, ready to help us in any way we need. That means the world to us. While this last week has been very intense and hectic at Food For Free, all of us are grateful that every day we know we are doing essential work to help mitigate this crisis. And when we sent out a link to let others sign-up to help, the response was tremendous. It’s been less than 24 hours and we already have over 750 volunteers. We understand the desire to help and we are looking forward to organizing an amazing community response.

So what are we doing?
Both Cambridge and Somerville schools will be closed for at least the next two weeks. Our Cambridge Weekend Backpack Program took place today as usual. In Somerville, where schools are already closed, we prepared the backpacks and let families pick them up directly.

The school departments are working on ways to provide breakfast and lunch for the kids during the closures. They are still determining the best way to reach as many people as possible and we expect to reach out to our volunteer list this weekend to help in this effort.

Beginning Tuesday, Food For Free will be delivering pallets of food to two Cambridge housing facilities each day. We expect to deliver to eight sites next week and have identified two more, mostly serving seniors, that we may be able to add later. We have located one site so far in Somerville and are working with the city to identify others.

We will be organizing volunteers to unload our truck, bag up groceries, and deliver them to individual apartments. We have identified buildings where many of the families we serve at the schools reside, but bags will be delivered to everyone in the complex.

We will continue to work closely with both cities to best understand where we can help and we will be reaching out to those of you who want to participate as volunteer opportunities arise.

Meanwhile, our usual work continues with some changes. Food Rescue has seen an uptick in one-off donations as many institutions close down, while volume at grocery store pickups has been lower.

Donors have been generous and we are grateful. We will be renting an additional truck and purchasing bags, gloves and thermometers. We don’t know what additional expenses will arise but we feel well-supported and able to respond. Any funds raised above what is necessary for crisis response will support our ongoing—and still very necessary—hunger relief work.

Thank you for the outpouring of support. Thanks to you, we have the strength, people power, and resources to respond to this crisis.