Health New England Announces Major Initiative for Hunger Relief |

Health New England Announces Major Initiative for Hunger Relief

Posted on December 16, 2016

From south of East Longmeadow to north of Greenfield, more families will be fed and more shelves will be stocked after 36 food agencies received generous financial support from Health New England. Teams of company associates delivered good news in the form of checks to food pantries, soup kitchens and other organizations which regularly provide meals to people in need. Along the way they collected remarkable stories and experienced the emotional and immediate impact of these gifts.

Addressing the health needs of the community is central to what we do. This year, Health New England conducted a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) to better understand the health needs of the communities we serve. The results highlighted serious challenges to maintaining a healthy lifestyle faced by many every day. One of the major issues in the four counties of Western Massachusetts was food insecurity due to lack of resources, and food deserts, areas where low-income people have limited access to grocery stores.

In deciding to address hunger at this time of the year, Health New England knew it could make a significant and meaningful impact on the region by donating to community organizations that already have a way of helping to feed hungry people in Western Massachusetts. By working with existing agencies serving all populations, 100% of the funds were directed to food inventory and meal preparation.

While the food resource centers received their surprise donation from Health New England just in time to feed our neighbors this holiday season, the impact is expected to assist them in procuring food and continuing meal distribution programs which may have been otherwise canceled due to lack of funding. Donations of varying amounts were distributed through agencies ranging from small, faith-based pantry sites to emergency shelters to local Boys and Girls clubs.

The recipients who received a surprise donation from us were:

Amherst Survival Center, Belchertown Food Pantry at BUCC, Boys and Girls Club – Chicopee, Boys and Girls Club – Greater Holyoke, Boys and Girls Club – West Springfield, Boys and Girls Club – Westfield, Center for Self-Reliance Food Pantry, Community Food Pantry, Community Survival Center, East Longmeadow Council on Aging, Easthampton Community Center, First Congregational Church Food Pantry, Food Bank of Western MA, Franklin Area Survival Center, Franklin County Community Meals, Friends of the Homeless, Gray House, Greater Westfield Emergency Food Pantry, Holyoke Soldier’s Home, Jubilee Cupboard at Trinity Episcopal Church, Kate’s Kitchen, Life Path Home Care Meals on Wheels, Lorraine’s Soup Kitchen, Margaret’s Pantry/Providence Ministries, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Northampton Survival Center, Not Bread Alone (CHD), Open Pantry Community Services, Open Pantry of Monson, Parish Cupboard, Springfield Boys and Girls Club, St. Paul’s Elder Outreach, Western MA Elder Care Nutrition Program, YMCA of Greater Springfield, YWCA of Springfield. Managers, directors, cooks, van drivers and volunteers have told us that hundreds of thousands of our neighbors in Western Massachusetts, including children, seniors, single parents, dislocated workers and others, won’t go hungry this holiday season due to our generous donation of $100,000.

“This has been one of my proudest moments at Health New England. We are helping people who truly need it. Health New England has been extremely focused on connecting community prevention, health and wellness programming throughout the community for at-risk children and families for over a decade. And we will continue to work on identifying the gaps and funding programs that could meet the needs of specific communities within our service area.” says Director, Office of the President and Community Relations, Judith Danek.

Want to learn more? Hear some of the stories from the organizations that we encountered while dropping off our surprise donations:

At the YWCA, which provides safe places for women and children in crisis, the Executive Director started to tear up when she saw the check. Just that morning, she had a meeting with her executive team and they were going to have to make the agonizing decision to cut out their lunch program. She said the Health New England donation will fund the next six months of the lunch program. She explained that many of the women who come to the YWCA come from either the hospital or the police station. They are often fleeing abusive situations and all they have are the clothes they’re wearing and their child’s favorite toy. For the first week, they don’t do anything but feed and clothe them and provide food to ‘feed their soul.’ After that, the YWCA offers women counseling, job training, child-care, and health and fitness. The YWCA also offers job training to people ages 16-21 who are out of school.

At the Parish Cupboard in West Springfield, we met a chef who had just finished serving a lunch. Their hot lunch program, which is open to anyone, is served Monday through Friday from 11:30a.m. to 12:30 p.m. They serve over 700 lunches per month. When told we were delivering a donation, he offered to come out and help us carry it from the car, thinking it might be canned goods. Instead, he accepted a check and expressed his gratitude and amazement for the generosity. He has been working at the pantry for seven years and says it is “his calling.” He likened his daily meal preparation to the Food Network show “Chopped,” where the ingredients are unknown until the last minute and the chef must create a delicious and nutritious meal. He pointed to nearly empty shelves and shared stories of the challenges of feeding people using limited and often last minute ingredients.

Our gifts to the regional Boys and Girls Clubs were accepted with heartfelt gratitude by all! We learned about a program expected to launch in January 2017 at the Boys and Girls Club of Springfield on Carew Street. Since many of the children rely on getting food from the school and after-school programs like the Boys and Girls Club, they were going to fill backpacks with non-perishable food that the kids could take home on the weekend. At the Boys and Girls Club of Chicopee we heard stories of siblings taking half of their lunch to hungry brothers and sisters at home. Our friends at the Greater Holyoke Club told us this donation would feed children in early childhood programs who would otherwise go without.

Health New England did not forget our veterans! The Superintendent of the Holyoke soldiers Home, Bennett Walsh, expressed his gratitude on behalf of the residents who would enjoy special holiday meals and treats courtesy of this donation.

Check out our video below to see how the 36 organizations reacted to their surprise donations!