Community, junior woman's club help Milton Community Food Pantry

MILTON MA//November 16, 2018 – Approximately 116 bags were filled on November 15, 2018 for the Milton Community Food Pantry’s Thanksgiving Day distribution for its clients. Each November, volunteer members from the Milton Junior Woman’s Club along with their children dedicate two hours to sort and bag canned goods and other nonperishable foods in an assembly line.

In organized chaos, the volunteers from the food pantry, Carol Hahnfeld and Leslie McCulloch, along with the MJWC volunteers conduct a choreographed pattern of foot traffic last Thursday in a space filled with tables, boxes and storage shelves. The bustling activity of volunteers circling the tables stacked with food while filling the bags for Thanksgiving also includes opening sealed boxes, breaking down empty boxes, getting the empty boxes prepped for recycling and constantly refilling the inventory. Then, the bags are double-checked to make sure each bag has the correct number of donated food items. From there the bags are carted away to be stored until distributed.

But the bundling of bags is not the only part of this community effort. Each of the elementary schools, with its teachers and PTO working behind the scenes spend weeks preparing boxes of food donations. In fact, the Milton Public School district is pivotal in the Thanksgiving Day preparations at the Food Pantry. “[Superintendent] Mary Gormley is phenomenal with the support the school system gives us,” said Pat Brawley, director of the pantry.

“It takes a lot of effort from many at the pantry to organize the holiday distributions,” said Jini Connors, who recently stepped down as co-director of the Milton Community Food Pantry after eight years in that position. “The elementary schools in town collect items that might go into a Thanksgiving dinner. So, each family receives a box made up by the schools, a bag of groceries, a turkey, a bag of potatoes and onions, coffee or tea and a pie and extra meat.”

She added that many groups have a part in a successful distribution. Along with the MJWC, help is received from Milton Academy for its freezer space for the turkeys, the Greater Boston Food Bank, Wegmans which provides the bags, the Milton Fruit Center, students from Milton High School, Piece by Piece Moving Company for the monthly food pickups and the “terrific help from all the pantry volunteers.”

“It’s always such fun with the group when the MJWC comes [to the pantry]. Everyone is so nice, and the children are such wonderful helpers and really seem to enjoy doing the bundling,” Ms. Connors said.

In advance of this effort, the MJWC had also conducted a month-long food drive within the Milton community.

MJWC Co-President Jen McNulty noted that this annual volunteer date is especially valuable because the club members can bring their children and demonstrate the value of volunteerism in the community.

“Helping each year at the Milton Food Pantry is one of my favorite events that we as a club participate in. I am always impressed with the amount of food that we collect from our friends and neighbors and then to see it all go to good use is amazing. On the day we fill the bags it is always a fun time to get together but to do this by helping others makes it so much more important. And, even as important, we demonstrate to our children the value of volunteerism. As a town we are so fortunate to have the Food Pantry and the amazing people that run it. The MWJC is only doing our small part to give back,” said Ms. McNulty.

Approximately 116 families in Milton will be helped by this community effort during the holidays. In past years, the numbers have reached 150 families. “The number of families that use the pantry has declined over the past two years,” Ms. Connors noted, adding, “I’m not sure if it is due to the lack of affordable housing in Milton or a better economy. I would like to think it’s the economy.”

The MJWC is a civic organization formed in 1912 with a long history of providing funding to non-profit organizations and charities that benefit Milton residents, and scholarships to high school seniors who live in Milton. Its three underlying values of its mission are service, community and support.

For more information or to join, visit the Milton Junior Woman’s Club webpage at www.miltonjuniorwomansclub.com

The Milton Community Food Pantry is located at the Parkway Methodist Church, 158 Blue Hills Parkway, and can be reached by phone at 617-696-0221. If you would like to donate, volunteer or an in need of assistance, go it its webpage at www.miltonfoodpantry.org. When donating food, please remember to look at expiration dates and not send food that is expired.