Community Support Strengthens Revere

During this time of unprecedented demand for food assistance, the strength and compassion of our community was on full display at our Mobile Market at Cambridge Health Alliance – Revere (CHA) on Saturday, April 4. It was our largest distribution ever at that site, where we provided multiple weeks-worth of nutritious food for 474 households. It was only possible thanks to a new group of volunteers stepping up to help us provide hunger-relief.

With the demand for most of the CHA Revere staff to provide frontline care to patients in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, the Mobile Market was in need of additional volunteers to ensure the monthly distribution could still be executed. Thankfully a group of students at Harvard Medical School (where some of the CHA physicians are members of faculty) were looking for ways to volunteer and help during this pandemic and they eagerly lent a hand to fill the gap. Proper social distancing was practiced and hundreds of bags of food were safely packed and distributed by these students, providing critical food for our neighbors in need.

The 474 households served dwarfed the previous largest distribution at CHA of 323 households. Many young, healthy people attended the distribution to pick up food for their elderly relatives and neighbors.

This partnership shows the power of our communities when we come together to protect and provide for our most vulnerable neighbors.