New Recipients

Food Rescue is delivering to two new recipients. The first is a diabetes support group at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Revere location. Dr. Jacob Mirsky leads this group, which meets to discuss healthy cooking and eating as tools for managing diabetes and related health issues. Food For Free provides food to be prepared in the sessions as well as to be taken home by participants. We are also delivering to the Nurtury preschool in Cambridge, Founded in 1878, Nurtury was Massachusetts’ first early education and care non-profit. Nurtury now serves about 1,200 children a year, providing care, early education, and often as much as 2/3 of a child’s nutrition for the day.

New Truck!

Food For Free’s Isuzu truck We’re thrilled to welcome into our fleet a new Isuzu FTR refrigerated truck. Ryan says “With its high visibility cab and short turning radius we will be able to safely deliver up to 10,000 pounds of food at a time. We are particularly pleased with the modern clean-diesel technology that is kinder to the environment than our previous truck and decreases the truck’s down-time due to maintenance.”

New Hires

Amanda Trombley, as Marketing Manager. Amanda found us while volunteering for our Cambridge Weekend Backpack Program three years ago and she fell in love with our work. Amanda has over 25 years of marketing and communications expertise and she’s thrilled to bring her skills to our team. She lives in Cambridge with her family: her partner, daughter, and four rescue degus. Jill Lund, as our newest Food Rescue Coordinator Carol Nathan, in the new position of Business Manager. Prior to joining Food For Free, Carol was the Business Manager for the US office of The Abraham Fund Initiatives, an international non-profit dedicated to advancing coexistence, equality and cooperation between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens. When she’s not busy “counting beans”, you’ll find her at yoga or working in her yard or cross-country skiing or maybe playing with her pup, Manny.

Recent Grants

Life Science Cares has continued its generous support of our Family Meals program three packaged meals waiting to be sealed Bushrod Campbell Adah Hall Charity Fund, Emergency Food and Shelter Program, and Sanofi Genzyme, all for Home Delivery Lettuce for Home Delivery Cambridge Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, Frederick E. Weber Charities, Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Project Bread, Target, and TJX Foundation, for Food Rescue Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, for the Somerville Weekend Backpack Program. Jeff Bellows, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Public Affairs for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts says: “We are excited to partner with Food For Free in Somerville. Healthy foods should be available to everyone, and we are thrilled to support this unique program providing children with nutritious food on the weekends.” If you missed the news that we’re now operating a backpack program in Somerville, you can read more about it here.

And, finally, we’ve been in the news!

November 27, in The Boston Globe: Getting food to those who need it, with heaping portions of dignity October 30, in WickedLocal Cambridge: Cambridge’s Weekend Backpack Program expands into Somerville, offering students free food on weekends September 11, on NECN: Helping Food Insecure Students December 11, on WGBH: How Food From Harvard Feeds Hungry Community College Students Don’t forget to read the rest of this newsletter, with Chelsea’s piece about holiday deliveries, and Amanda’s discussion of the challenges around summertime meals for young students. Happy New Year