The 2022 Cambridge MLK DAY
CELEBRATION OF SERVICE AND LEARNING
Lead A Food Drive
You can make a difference
Thank you for helping to collect food and grocery gift cards for community food pantries!
Each year volunteers collect hundreds of bags of groceries for families and individuals in our communities who lack reliable access to food.
These donations are incredibly important this year as our community continues to struggle with the pandemic.
About Food Insecurity In Cambridge
Food insecurity in Cambridge, Somerville and Chelsea (and elsewhere in Massachusetts) continues to be very high. An estimated 15,000 Cambridge residents, or 13 percent of Cambridge’s entire population, are food insecure. This means that one in eight residents you see while running errands don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
The food insecurity rate amongst children is even more devastating, with 1 in 7 children lacking reliable access to food.
Getting Started
MLK Day Food Drive Leaders commit to collecting 25 bags of groceries by Friday, Jan 21st. Groceries can be donations from friends, neighbors, work colleges etc. If you can’t participate as a leader, please sign up at the right to contribute directly one of our community food pantries.
We’ll send you an email with your food pantry assignment and contact information—and where to pick up 25 grocery bags and 25 Food Drive letters on or after Sunday, January 9. Thank you for lending your helping hands!
FOOD PANTRIES ARE RELYING ON US
Community food pantries quite literally play a life-saving role in people’s lives. Your donations and leadership are vital to their ability to serve others. The donations that come in on MLK Day in Cambridge are often some of largest donations of the year, and the food pantry network has grown to rely on these gifts to get them through the winter.
Please only sign up if:
You really believe you can distribute, collect and deliver ~25 bags of groceries by Friday January 21st.
You have access to a car and ideally a friend or family member to help you.
If you aren’t sure you can meet these requirements consider stocking a community fridge or bringing donated grocery items to a food pantry on your own. Thank you!
Next Steps….
After you sign up, we’ll send you an email with where to pick up 25 grocery bags and 25 Food Drive letters. If you or your group would like to collect more than 25 bags of food that is awesome! Just let us know! We will have additional 25 bundles of 25 bags available.
Staple a copy of the Food Drive letter to the outside of each bag. We will include 25 copies. You can print our more by downloading this PDF. Be sure to add the name of the food pantry you are collecting for in the letter.
Distribute the bags to neighbors, friends or colleagues during the week before January 17th, MLK Day.
Pick up the bags of donated groceries during the week of MLK Day.
Deliver the bags of groceries and/or gift cards to your assigned food pantry.
Take photos and email them to us: As we are not together this year and can’t see all the ways our community is lending a hand, please share your photos of 1) distributing bags, 2) picking up bags, 3) bring bags to the pantry and email us so we can share our collective work!
Share on social media. We hope you will consider tweeting or instagramming photos of your team delivering your food and tagging us! @MHH365
We’ll send you a follow up email with a few questions. This is IMPORTANT so keep an eye out! Thank you for being a king!
The Food PanTries We SUpport
- Cambridge Community Center
- CEOC (2 locations)
- East End House
- Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House
- Project Manna- Mass Ave Baptist Church
- Project Soup (Somerville)
- Pentacostal Tabernacle
- St. James Episcopal (Somerville)
- St. Paul's Parish
- St. Paul's AME
- Salvation Army (Cambridge)
- La Colaborativa (Chelsea)
QUESTIONS?
We are here to help! Please email us a hello@manyhelpinghands365.org and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Map of 2022 Participating food pantries
RESOURCES
What is Food Insecurity?
In 2020, an estimated 1 in 8 Americans were food insecure, equating to over 38 million Americans, including almost 12 million children. (read more at Feeding America)
What to donate to a food bank and what to avoid
Food banks accept dry and canned food donations. What does that mean? Basically, any food that is “shelf-stable” or nonperishable – you can keep it in your pantry and it won’t go bad (read more at Feeding America)