ORANGE — Who could blame Clifford Fournier, at 87, from taking just a bit of a rest from his role as coordinator of the Orange Community Meal site?
Fournier, who has coordinated the twice-weekly meal at Bethany Lutheran Church for more than 10 years — and will retire from that post after the Dec. 27 meal — won’t exactly be putting his feet up, says program Executive Director Andrea Leibson.
In addition to his work coordinating the Orange Community meal, for which he’s paid a small stipend, Liebson says, Founier also devotes volunteer hours the remaining five days a week collecting food from Walmart and Hannaford’s for the meal, as well as for the Orange Food Pantry and other North Quabbin community meals.
That work, by arrangement with the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, will continue.
At the Orange Community Meal, which serves up to 70 people twice a week — with Fournier and volunteers serving 10,000 meals this year, including extra helpings, volunteer Laurie MacDonald will succeed him as coordinator. MacDonald has lived in Orange since 1994.
The free community meal at the Cheney Street church will continue on Thursdays beginning at 5:30 p.m., but Monday meals will be suspended beginning in January “for a variety of reasons,” according to Leibson.
In addition to giving MacDonald time to grow into the new post, the suspension comes as the site becomes the property of Mission Covenant Church, and the program works with Mission Covenant and area organizations to increase the number of groups involved in the Orange meals.
“The need in Orange is still great, so, we hope to increase the number of meals we offer each month,” said Leibson, who invited anyone who wants to come to the Turners Falls Monday night meal at Our Lady of Peace Church. People are also welcome to attend the free community meals in Greenfield on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Second Congregational Church on Court Square.
Fournier, who grew up in Orange and worked for 32 years as a special education teacher at Erving Elementary School, as well as chairing the Orange, Mahar Regional and Franklin County Technical School boards, was honored in 2015 as Recorder Citizen of the Year.
“If Cliff Fournier could feed the world, he would,” said a written nomination by six people at the time. “If he could give every homeless person a place to sleep, he would. If he could give every needy person an education, he would. Clifford Fournier is a class act. He’s priceless and irreplaceable.”
At the time, Fournier — who began cooking for and organizing the community meal as a volunteer, along with foreign exchange students he hosted for decades — told The Recorder at the time that he has eight freezers in his basement to stock up with extra meals, cakes and dinners, some of which he’s brought to people in the community he knows are particularly in need of special help.
“We had nothing,” Fournier said of growing up with his grandparents in Orange during the Depression. “I remember we’d have nothing to eat in the house, and my grandmother would take ‘oyster dots’” — little oyster crackers — “and sprinkle them with butter and vinegar and put them in the oven. I grew up very poor, but I don’t think that impressed me. I got into the momentum of doing this after I got through teaching. I dealt with families with special needs all my life, so I got to know families that were having problems.”
He added, “I don’t think it was as bad before as it is now. There are less opportunities, with fewer factories in town. That’s always impressed me. Some people are very hesitant (at the food pantry) saying, ‘We don’t know what to do. We’ve never done this before. … We both got laid off, and it’s been a couple of weeks,with no money coming in. It happens to people quick sometimes; they don’t expect to have to find food. We’ve had homeless people come in for a brown bag, who say, ‘We don’t think we can qualify.’ We say, ‘come in.’”
Leibson said that is “Cliff’s passionate about feeding people. But not doing the meals, he will be able to take some much needed rest. He would like to relax a little.”