23/04/2021
A very local organization feeding the hungry... Pembroke.
Giving it 110%
Norwell High School wins April break week competition
During the last week of March Madness, four towns stepped up to compete in our Stellwagen fundraiser, since they were all raising money for warehouse packaging events. Pembroke came in first, then Norwell, then Marshfield, and lastly, Duxbury.
While our average 3-hour shift packs 69 boxes (15,000 meals), the high schools from these towns are anything but average. Marshfield comes every month (and was called off the bench today) and did 79 boxes a few weeks ago to set the bar. Duxbury went right over it with 92, under Harrison’s leadership. That’s right, a student got the money and the volunteers together for their event. Pembroke dropped into 3rd with 72.
So while we needed to produce 109 boxes to fill the orders being picked up at 4 this afternoon, we just had one shift left. Marshfield came in for two hours…but they didn’t have to.
BC High once did 115 boxes in 3 hours. No group had ever come within 20 boxes of that. Norwell fell just 5(!) short. They gave it 110% and crushed 110 boxes. Marshfield packed extra boxes for our next order (and by order, I mean two orders that came in today). We just finished week 57 in a row of raising money and packing meals. It was our biggest week in 21 weeks!
Last year, we raised an average of $100,000 each and every month. We are less than $1,000 away from $100,000 in April (Keller Williams Realty in Trumbull CT is funding 50,000 meals). All donations coming in now will be matched by St John Lutheran church in Killingly CT.
Please share the 4 ways to give listed here (and shout from the roof tops about the matching money):
EndHungerNE.org
In 16 weeks and 2 days, we’ll be celebrating our 10th anniversary of ending local hunger throughout New England. Can we continue to fund as many general shifts as warehouse events as mobile events? Between now and Father’s Day weekend, we have 4 general shifts, 4 warehouse events, and 3 mobile events. In two days, Merrimack College on the North Shore will be doing its 6th(!) mobile pandemic event. Endicott College (also on the North Shore) has done 4. So those who campuses have done two more events than ALL OTHER NEW ENGLAND GROUPS COMBINED. Wow!
No matter which of these 3 ways we do it, donors feed the hungry in their area:
1. Donate monthly or whenever you can. 25 of our nearly 200 donors this year have given multiple times. Volunteers who grab spots on EndHungerNE.org pack the meals, which are picked up/delivered to your neighborhoods throughout the region. Whenever we raise another $4,500, we add another shift.
2. If you are close enough to Pembroke MA, fund meals which you actually pack yourselves by letting us know the date and timeframe you’d like to come to our warehouse with 24 or less volunteers who you mobilize. Your shift will appear with the coordinator’s name and all 24 spots taken. It’s like the 3rd option, but no paperwork (we do that for you, since we’re “hosting”), WAY more meal variety for your pantries (up to all 10!), and you come to us, instead of the other way around.
3. Book a mobile event. If this is your choice, you’ll be able to pack one kind for every 10,000 meals you fund, which then go to your local pantries. Just email/message us and we’ll send you the paperwork.