The Walk for Hunger
Food For Free participated in Project Bread’s Walk For Hunger on Sunday, May 2, raising more than $20,000 for the fight against hunger in Massachusetts. We had a team of over 40 walking throughout the state, supporting Food For Free! Food For Free will keep 60% of what our team raised, with the remainder going to support hunger relief initiatives throughout Massachusetts. Thank you to all who participated and donated to this year’s Walk For Hunger!
Program Updates
School Markets are up and running again, now using Just Eats boxes, to facilitate safe, physically distanced distributions. We’re currently serving six schools: Kennedy-Longfellow, Peabody, MLK, Tobin, Benjamin Banneker, and Community Charter School of Cambridge. We’re delivering between 40 and 85 boxes to each school, every other week.
We’re grateful to the Family Liaisons at each school for managing these distributions.
(Because distributions are being handled by school staff, no volunteers are needed for this program.)
Just Eats is currently churning out 3,360 boxes each week—1,360 in-house and another 2,000 in partnership with our friends at the Boston Area Gleaners. Starting on May 10, we’ll be expanding our in-house production to 2,016 boxes per week. We’ll be looking for some additional volunteers to make this happen. Interested? Sign up here.
Just Eats is helping us expand our reach, all the way up to Marblehead. You can read about one of our new partners over here.
The details of Summer Backpacks are still in the works, but it looks like we’ll be supporting 4-5 camps in Cambridge and Somerville.
Farmers’ Market Food Rescue will start up again this month. Be on the lookout for our trucks (or bikes!) at markets in Arlington, Belmont, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Watertown.
New hires
As our programs grow, so does our staff. We’re pleased to welcome these fine folks to the Food For Free team:
- Dominic Carter, Food Rescue Coordinator
- Emily Griffin, Just Eats Program Coordinator
- Deb Veth, Head of Finance and Administration
- Kieran Winslow, Development Coordinator
Recent Grants
We are grateful for the recent grants we have received, including support from:
- Abaris Financial
- The Great Boston Food Bank
- The Kathryn and Charles Avison–Miriam Avison Charitable Fund
- Pfizer
- Social Venture Partners Boston
- Takeda
Media Coverage
Food For Free has received great media coverage recently including the following highlights:
- Boston Herald, Coronavirus Pandemic Has Caused Food Insecurity In Massachusetts To Soar
- Cambridge Day, Food For Free Adds 3,000 Just Eats Boxes Weekly To Its Mission Of Feeding Food-Insecure Families
- Boston Herald, One Year Into Coronavirus Pandemic, Massachusetts Among Hardest Hit By Hunger
- The Daily Free Press, Vandalized John Lewis Mural Finds New Home At Cambridge Nonprofit
- Cambridge Chronicle, Food For Free Distributing Daily Table Gift Cards
- Marblehead Patch, Marblehead Community Charter School Aids North Shore Food Access
