LEOMINSTER — Hundreds of people descended upon City Hall over the weekend to pack over 50,000 Meals of Hope as part of a Leominster Rotary Club initiative.
There was a buzz of positive energy inside the space on Saturday, Feb. 28, where people of all ages gathered to help. Over 300 volunteers including Rotarians, families, and community members packed meals in two locations simultaneously, Leominster and Westford, exceeding the 100K meals total goal.
“I am beyond impressed and thankful to everyone that came out to support our project while making new connections,” said Rotary District 7910 Governor and longtime Leominster Rotary Club member Johnny Ahern. “A few simple hours on a Saturday morning turned into a massive impact to fight food insecurity across our area. I cannot thank everyone enough for their support.”
He reported that this was the first time they have helped with this and in addition to the 15 Rotary clubs across Central Mass who participated and took food back to their communities, they were able to provide city based nonprofit organization Ginny’s Helping Hand with over 2,000 pounds of food along with food for the Worcester County Food Bank and received sponsorships from All One Credit Union, Fidelity Bank, and the Brown family.
Rotary Club of Westford also packed over 50,000 meals along with the people in Leominster and the activity there was livestreamed on a big screen at Leominster City Hall. Volunteers in Leominster ran the six assembly lines smoothly, putting bags under a funnel and pouring in ingredients including rice, dried beans and carrots, and soy protein and then sealing and labeling them.
Once the meals that included six servings each were ready to go, they were packed into boxes that contained 36 meal bags each, which equates to 216 servings of the rice and bean casserole. For each box that was packed up, a gong was struck with a mallet and then the boxes were rolled out on a dolly and loaded in to the Meals of Hope van to be distributed to those in need in areas around the region.
Sky View and Samoset middle schools soccer players worked alongside people from all over, including Fitchburg resident Lucy Schilling, who found out about the volunteer opportunity through the day program she attends.
“I love helping people, I want to do everything I can,” she said while sitting in a chair sealing the meal bags and putting Leominster Rotary Club stickers on them.
Franklin Community High School INTERACT Club President Syed Azhar stayed busy loading the meal bags into boxes and then carrying boxes to the dolly. The 17-year-old relayed that he has done the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards training program and been involved INTERACT, essentially “a baby Rotary club” for middle and high school students, for many years.
When asked why he traveled all the way from Franklin to Leominster to help, the teenager said “that’s what I want to do in life.”
“The thing that matters most is legacy,” Azhar said with wisdom beyond his years.
There were snacks and drinks available for the volunteers to enjoy and when the large group finished packing over 50,000 meals about an hour ahead of schedule, a big cheer went up and everyone helped clean up and put the tables and chairs away before they went home after doing their good deed for the day.
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