GREENFIELD — When the Franklin County Community Meals Program encountered a particularly strapped budget in 2016, it left organizers wondering how they could possibly continue to offer non-perishable bagged lunches for their meal guests to take home with them.
“Our organization needed to pay for the food that went into those,” said Franklin County Community Meals Program Executive Director Andrea Leibson. “We just couldn’t do that anymore.”
So, Emily Whitney, the volunteer who had been putting the bags together single-handedly and who was also feeling like she couldn’t continue, sought help from her Facebook friends, hoping they might contribute to a goal of collecting 400 bags with nonperishable food.
“Her appeal really spoke to people,” Leibson said. The goal was surpassed nearly three times over for a total of 1,100 bags.
Today, the now routine collection is part of what the Franklin County Community Meals Program calls the Brown Bag Brigade. On Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m., volunteers will collect bags donated by community members at the Second Congregational Church in Greenfield.
“We already have 450 even before the day, so we’re hoping to hit that 2,000 number,” Leibson said of her goals this year. Having collected 2,150 bags last February, she believes it’s a feasible goal to meet.
The idea behind offering non-perishable lunches to recipients of the program’s community meals stems from organizers wanting to ensure Franklin County’s residents don’t go hungry, regardless of the day of the week.
“There is no free community meal on Friday in town and we wanted to make sure that no one faced hunger on Fridays,” Leibson explained.
The non-perishable lunches have routinely been distributed at the Greenfield meal site — the Second Congregational Church — on Wednesdays. But because of the Brown Bag Brigade’s success, last year, the Franklin County Community Meals Program was able to start distributing the bags at the Thursday meals at the Orange Armory as well.
The bag collection was ultimately moved from September to February to coincide with students’ school vacation “so that families and kids could work together to make it a project,” Leibson said. However, the meals program accepts bags during the rest of the year, too, allowing organizers to collect a total of 4,150 by the end of last year.
Girl Scout troops, classrooms, a YMCA teen group, businesses, church congregations and other community groups all participate, she said, including the Small World Preschool in South Deerfield, where children and staff assembled 78 bags of non-perishable food on Friday.
“One of the important takeaways for this event is that all kinds of groups are participating,” Leibson said. “It has caused people to discuss volunteerism and helping others and hunger in the local area.”
Leibson recalls a particularly memorable moment, in 2017, when nearly 100 Girl Scouts in South Deerfield took it upon themselves to organize a food drive, and then gather to decorate and fill the bags.
“Everyone thinks hunger doesn’t occur among their neighbors,” she explained. “They think it happens somewhere else, and I got to talk to them about how local children are hungry. It was quite interesting to see their reaction. They provided over 500 bags themselves.”
Leibson said she hopes to impress upon community members that anyone can make a difference. No number of lunches donated is too few.
“You don’t have to have a lot of money,” she said. “Everyone can contribute something and everyone can help take care of people they might not even know who are hungry.”
On Sunday, at least five of the Franklin County Community Meals Program’s 11-member board of directors will collect the donated bags. Leibson said members of the Greenfield High School hockey team are volunteering to stack the totes once they are filled with bags, which will all be stored at the Second Congregational Church until they are used. Between 80 and 100 lunches are distributed at the Orange and Greenfield meal sites each week.
Suggested items to include in the bags are: granola bars, bottled water, canned pasta, canned soups/stews, peanut butter crackers, cocoa, tuna, macaroni and cheese, juice boxes, energy bars, oatmeal cups, single-pack desserts, fruit cups and apple sauce.
Residents who cannot make it to the church on Sunday are encouraged to arrange delivery of their donations by calling 413-772-1033 or by emailing fccmp.ma@gmail.com.