ORANGE, NJ — Members of Impact100 Essex spent Mother’s Day weekend packing food and necessities with MEND food pantries. Meeting Essential Needs with Dignity is the recipient of Impact100 Essex’s 2019 $120,000 grant, which it used to purchase a refrigerated cargo van — dubbed “The Sweet Pea” — to streamline distribution. MEND was also able to use the grant to partially fund the launch of its Fresh Food Hub in Orange to refrigerate, pack and distribute fresh and healthy food to individuals and families in need.
The Mother’s Day volunteer event featured the collaborative effort to unpack, organize and store food for easy future distribution. Timed to highlight the impact of food insecurity on families, Impact100 Essex invited members to volunteer side-by-side with their children.
“Spending time volunteering at MEND with my 23-year-old daughter over Mother’s Day was wonderful. Her interests include nonprofit work, so this was natural for us. She actually signed up to work before I did,” Impact100 Essex member Anne Zakin said. “It felt great to emerge from the winter, meet up with some women I’ve seen only on Zoom for a year, pack up a whole lot of food and share that with my daughter.”
The volunteer event also was a great opportunity for all members to gather, some for the first time since the pandemic.
“We are thrilled to match our support for MEND’s infrastructure innovations with a socially distanced opportunity to join new and old members in live, hands-on work,” said Margo Greenfield, co-convener of Impact100 Essex.
Impact100 Essex’s mission to award transformative grants is something to which MEND can fully attest.
“The local food pantries that we support expressed a need for fresh food. Securing the Impact100 Essex grant has enabled us to donate nearly 10 times more fresh food than the same time period in the previous year — 258,000 total pounds of fresh food compared to 26,000 pounds,” MEND Executive Director Robin Peacock said. “The giving model of Impact100 Essex to provide grants for transformative local changes is so inspiring that I actually became a member myself.”
For more information about Impact100 Essex, visit www.impact100essex.org or email membership@impact100essex.org.
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