WARWICK — A small group of residents, working under the banner of the Warwick Community Mutual Aid Network, has continued to connect community members in need with critical resources during the pandemic.
The local group falls under the umbrella of the larger Western Massachusetts Community Mutual Aid, and was formed in the spring to help provide food or other resources, and connect those in need with those who can help.
One of the major tasks of the Warwick network, according to organizer Claudia Lewis, has been combating food insecurity. Lewis said the Warwick Community Mutual Aid Network has been in communication with the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and is filing an application to establish a permanent food pantry in town.
“Other small towns, like Wendell, Charlemont and Ashfield, with populations of roughly 1,000, have permanent food pantries,” Lewis noted.
While plans for a long-term pantry are in the works, the local network has relied on the assistance of programs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, LifePath and more to provide food to residents for more than six months. On Friday mornings, free food is available at the Trinitarian Congregational Church of Warwick, which can particularly help those who are concerned about exposing themselves to COVID-19 by traveling to grocery stores.
Next week’s distribution will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 22, instead of Friday due to Christmas.
Selectboard member Brian Snell has been acting as the liaison between the board and the Warwick Community Mutual Aid Network. As the weather gets colder, Snell said they may move the food program to the former Warwick Community School, the current location for student meal pick-ups. The mutual aid network could then use the cold storage at the school to keep certain foods.
Some of the distributed food has been gleaned from local farms. Gleaning is when farms leave imperfect crops in the field, or crops that were not quite ripe at the time of harvest, and volunteers pick the crops for themselves. While Warwick and neighboring towns have a high senior population, Lewis said she hoped to connect with a younger demographic that is interested in gleaning, or that is interested in reviving and maintaining the gardens at the Trinitarian Congregational Church, where residents used to grow produce.
“The mutual aid network did get a donation of seeds,” Lewis said. “It would be great to have a place to put those, and people to tend to them.”
Lewis added she knows someone who worked for Help Yourself Edibles, an organization that plants orchards and gardens in public places in Western Massachusetts to produce food free for anyone to harvest. That kind of system, she said, would be emblematic of Warwick’s “attitude of being connected and sharing with each other.”
One weekly program the Warwick Community Mutual Aid Network has used through LifePath is the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which takes food from farmers whose normal supply chains have been disrupted by restaurants closing and provides the food to seniors or people who require aid due to physical disabilities.
“We had a 30-household distribution (on Dec. 7),” Snell said. “Each household got a 30-pound box of food.”
When considering how the Warwick Community Mutual Aid Network has helped those in need, organizers feel the group simply formalizes the helpful spirit residents already exhibit on a regular basis.
“When one of us is sick or hospitalized, when a family member dies or when some other calamity strikes, members of our community pitch in with meals, rides to the doctor and firewood parties,” a flier for the Warwick Community Mutual Aid Network reads.
For more information, visit wmacma.com or email
warwickmutualaid@gmail.com.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com.