PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Unity can have significant impacts on a community. This was demonstrated during the Berkshire United Way's annual meal kit packing event on Saturday. 

 

More than 100 individuals filled the Boys and Girls Club to assemble 40,000 meal kits filled with apple cinnamon oatmeal, Spanish rice, tomato basil pasta, and minestrone. Each of the kits includes seasoning packets.  

 

The kits will be distributed to 13 food pantries across the county, including South Community Pantry, the Christian Center, and more. Berkshire Bounty, one of the event's sponsors, will be distributing kits to several pantries in South County. 

 

"We're united for good. We're united to feed the Berkshires. We're united in order to meet our mission, to meet needs in the community," said Thomas Bernard, Berkshire United Way president and CEO, and this year's Rotary Club of Pittsfield president.

 

Volunteers of all ages from several organizations attended the event, including Pittsfield High School Rotary Interact Club students, two Rotary Youth Exchange students from Germany and Japan, Adams Community Bank, and one of the event's sponsors, UNICO of Pittsfield. 

 

"We want to remind people that if you can give something, it makes a difference, because what you give, what your neighbor gives, what your community gives, all collectively, adds up to something really powerful," Bernard said. 

 

Berkshire United Way partners with End Hunger New England, an affiliation of The Outreach Program, to put on this event. 

 

The Rotary Club was holding its district conference in Pittsfield this year, so Berkshire United Way worked with the club to align the event with the conference. It was also one of the event's sponsors. 

 

End Hunger New England is running 17 events in 16 days, with this Berkshire United Way event being the second largest. The goal is to feed 338,000 people during this period.

 

"Between now and Mother's Day, we're feeding a lot of people. One out of three people in the Commonwealth will be hungry at some point this year, and a lot of people in the Berkshires," said Matthew Martin, New England regional manager for the outreach program. 

 

The organization has been doing this work for 15 years and aims to combat hunger by creating community connections and providing sustainable meal solutions.

 

"The reason we started doing it was because there were 2 million people in New England that were hungry. We got it down to a 20-year low. It took us eight and a half years, but then the pandemic shot up to as high as it had ever been. It started to go down again, and then inflation, cuts to federal government funding for food security, are causing it to go up, but we're going to push it down again," Martin said. 

 

"It's like whack-a-mole. We're just like, doing everything we can to keep pushing hunger down, but the only way you can really do it is community. It's by living united. Berkshires have hungry kids, elderly people, veterans, college students, immigrants, refugees; there's sons of people in our neighborhoods that are hungry. We're going to unify and make this happen. Feed them. If there's more hungry people, we'll just work harder."

 

The need now is greater than it has been. It is skyrocketing and it's getting harder. The community is worried about cuts to school programs, SNAP, and other benefits people receive, Bernard said. 

 

"We're meeting a need, but we're also building community. You can see it at the tables. You can see the connection," said Bernard. 

 

"I love the friendly competition that comes into all of this. As people, keep score of how many boxes and where they are going, but it's all because at the end of the day, we're going to put these meals on trucks, and people are going to pick them up, and they're going to go to pantries throughout the Berkshires." 

 

The organization's motto is End Hunger New England. However, it could also be called Enriching Lives New England because the community that's created when feeding all the hungry neighbors in the area enriches everyone who's involved, Martin said. 

 

The National Association of Letter Carriers has organized food drives around Mother's Day, and churches collected significant amounts of food for Thanksgiving, often enough to last six months, Martin said.

 

Currently, food pantries receive such donations but find them depleted within a month. As a result, there is a continuous effort to assemble and stock meals for the remaining 10 months of the year.

 

This is not the only volunteer initiative for Berkshire United Way. Next Saturday, May 10, it is partnering with the postal carriers for the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive. 

 

Volunteers help unload mail trucks as they come to the post offices with food donations, weigh everything, and then load it into vehicles for distribution to 12 area food pantries.

 

All food collected in Dalton and Pittsfield is brought to the Pittsfield post office and distributed to pantries throughout Pittsfield and Dalton. Shifts are available from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. More information here.