- Our programs keep growing:
Home Delivery: We are proud to have expanded to serve everyone who had been on our waiting list! Through some creative collaboration with our partners, Homeowners Rehabilitation, Inc., we’re now able to deliver Home Delivery boxes more efficiently, which in turn has allowed us to take on more clients. Huzzah for partnerships, which really do make our work possible.
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Cambridge Weekend Backpack Program: We added three new schools this year, Cambridgeport, Amigos, and Baldwin. We’re also noticing that more students are enrolling at our existing programs. Why? Our family liaisons explain that it can take time for families to come to trust in a program. We’re glad to be earning that trust.
School Markets: We’re now up to 4 free afterschool “markets”, which serve elementary and middle school students at 7 Cambridge public schools. Our newest school market is the Peabody Market, which is available to families from Peabody School and Rindge Avenue Upper Campus.
- New food donor partners:
Boston University has joined us as a Food Rescue donor, by contributing surplus catering. Welcome, Boston University!- bfresh Brighton opened in August, and they’ve been donating food 6 days a week ever since. Huzzah!
- Harvard Law School has joined us by donating their catering surplus for our Food Rescue programs. Delighted to have you, HLS!
- New food programs & partnerships:
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Plymouth Congregational Church’s Soup Ministry in Belmont has joined us as a recipient partner. We provide ingredients for their volunteers to cook into hearty, healthy soup, which then gets distributed through ABCD’s Mobile Food Pantry. -
We’re now providing pantry items for Allston-Brighton Food Pantry.
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Meditation as Medicine runs a meditation program for low-income folks in Harvard Square. We’re providing fruit, snacks, and sandwiches.
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At Cambridge College, we’re providing salads, sandwiches, and ready-to-eat items for their student Coffee Hour, and produce and other pantry items for a monthly Free Fresh Produce Market.
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- New board members! We’re bidding a warm welcome to:
- Elan Ezickson, COO and Head of Corporate Development with biotech research firm Scholar Rock, Inc.
- Justin Kang, Executive Director of civic innovation lab City Awake
- Jessica Newman, former Executive Director of BJ’s Charitable Foundation, which supports hunger prevention and education
- Marina Seevak, Founder and Director of creative reuse center The Beautiful Stuff Project
Food For Free in the news:
- Looky looky: the Improper Bostonian covered our Party Under the Harvest Moon! Check out this gallery to see our friends from The Comedy Studio, Car Talk, CitySprouts, and others, all gussied up in their party clothes.
- Alanna Mallon spoke to Bay State Parent about our Backpack Program and our School Markets: Cambridge Tackles Student Hunger One Backpack At a Time
- Our new Pine Street Inn partnership is in the Boston Globe, on the radio, and on TV—more on that here.
