Community Servings in Jamaica Plain delivers Thanksgiving spirit and hundreds of holiday meals

Wellesley resident John Tyler racked up 9,400 steps by 10:30 Wednesday morning inside Community Servings’ kitchen in Jamaica Plain, helping package hundreds of Thanksgiving meals to be delivered to residents in need across Greater Boston.

Tyler, who arrived around 6:30 a.m., called volunteering the day before Thanksgiving a labor of love. He joined roughly 90 others in the kitchen preparing boxes of roast turkey, mushrooms with gravy, mashed Yukon gold potatoes, herb stuffing and other holiday staples.

“It’s energetic, it’s crazy, but it’s fun and it feels like you’re making a difference,” said Tyler, who has volunteered for the nonprofit for three years, putting in more than 1,800 hours of service. “I can’t do anything about global warming, I can’t do anything about the stuff going on in Washington, but I can make a little bit of a difference in addressing hunger in Boston and Massachusetts.”

In addition to the holiday meals, Tyler and the kitchen volunteer crew packaged 4,500 medically customized meals for a special delivery to individuals living with critical and chronic illness across the region. More than 50 volunteer drivers delivered weekly meal bags to 665 of Community Servings’ clients.

The nonprofit, which focuses on food security for those facing medical challenges, overcame COVID-19-related setbacks, as volunteers continued to serve Monday-Friday throughout the past two years, said Ryan Levasseur, director of communications. It delivered a similar number of meals compared to pre-pandemic, he said.

“Sometimes the person you are delivering to, you may be the only person they see in the whole week,” Levasseur said. “Not everybody has the same Thanksgiving. There are other realities that people have.”

Natick resident Tyler Masse delivered meals Wednesday alongside his 17-year-old daughter Shea, 14-year-old son Kal and Kal’s friend, Josh. It marked the third time the family has trekked to Jamaica Plain to fulfill what Masse said has become a tradition, and an activity his children have grown to love.

“I don’t look at it as us doing hero work, the people here are doing the hero work,” Masse said, “but it just feels good. I want to instill community in them. It’s very important for them to see ‘Hey, things are going really well in our lives,’ but it’s not like that for everyone. Those roles may be reversed sometime in the future.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/sHUnYLT