Xiarhos organizes statewide coat drive for veterans
The Register
BOSTON – State Representative Steve Xiarhos (R-West Barnstable) organized and participated in a statewide campaign to distribute new winter coats to veterans across the Commonwealth.
A total of 18,000 winter coats are being provided at no cost to veterans under the Coats4Vets program, thanks to the Massachusetts Military Support Foundation and its generous partners. The coats are being supplied by Ocean State Job Lot as part of its “Buy, Give, Get” program to help veterans in need. The program encouraged customers to purchase a new winter coat and then donate it back to the store in exchange for a gift card.
Mark Wagner
COVID-19 has reduced incomes and disrupted some food supply chains, such that hunger is on the rise. And while food insecurity is impacting vulnerable households everywhere, Worcester has responded in admirable ways.
On four January mornings in the north parking lot at Worcester State, an event organized by Tim Garvin of The United Way and President Barry Maloney at WSU, numerous organizations joined forces to address food insecurity.
These community leaders included The Woo Sox, Ocean State Job Lot, the United Way, Polar Beverages, Table Talk Pies, Girls Inc. and Massachusetts Military Support Foundation. They created drive-through food pantries, distributing about 102,480 pounds of fresh and shelf life food and cases of water, more than 6,000 tasty pies, and close to 1,000 cartons of feminine hygiene products to families who have been suffering during the year of COVID-19 and an unsettled political landscape.
Mass. Military Support Foundation tops 1M pounds of food passed to hungry families
Updated Jan 31, 2021;
Facebook Share
As West Springfield Mayor Will Reichelt dropped a box of food into the back of an SUV Saturday morning, the Massachusetts Military Support Foundation had formally distributed its one-millionth pound of food from its Western Mass Farmers to Families Food Drive.
“That’s a lot of food,” Reichelt said just after loading up the car inside the Better Living Center at the Big E. “It really shows the veterans community and how it comes together. During the time of the pandemic when there are food insecurity issues across the region to see these folks come together to get donations and distribute them like this is really awesome.”
WEST SPRINGFIELD On Saturday, Jan. 30 at 10 a.m., the Massachusetts Military Support Foundation (MMSF), which distributed Patriot Farm Food Boxes at Eastern States Exposition’s Better Living Center, will hand out its 1 millionth pound of fresh food in Western Mass. since October, when the MMSF stepped up after the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program’s funding was cut. The USDA’s program has recently been approved for further funding, and the MMSF was selected as a distribution partner for the USDA’s Farmers to Families program.
Farmers to Families Food Boxes provide well-balanced, pre-packaged, perishable food to combat the massive food-insecurity problem posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The foods come from farms and producers severely affected by restaurant, school, and other closures that interrupted the supply chain. Instead, through federal grants and the efforts of volunteer groups such as the MMSF, the nutritious food is directed to those in need on a local and