Published: 8/23/2020 6:53:45 PM
EASTHAMPTON — For several hours on most Saturday mornings, the kitchen of Our Lady of the Valley Parish in Easthampton is a-buzz with volunteers cooking and preparing meals to deliver to about 90 area homebound elderly. The program, Take and Eat, was created to deliver meals only on weekends, filling in the gap when another program, the weekday Meals on Wheels, does not operate. The organization has member groups working throughout western Massachusetts and the Easthampton program is geared specifically to the towns of Easthampton, Southampton and Westhampton. Volunteers from Our Lady of the Valley Parish lead the effort on the first and third Saturdays each month, and a combination of volunteers recruited through the two smaller congregations of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Easthampton and Westhampton Congregational Church provide the muscle every fourth Saturday. The organization is hoping to enlist another group for the open second Saturday.
This Saturday a group of nine volunteers, not including the delivery drivers, began about 7 a.m. cooking the barbecue chicken dinners and preparing separate bag lunches to go along with them. Lori Brogle of Westhampton, helping to portion the peas, said she loves the work. “It satisfies my need to cook for a lot of people – and it’s just one day a month.” About 11 a.m. the drivers start arriving to pick up the meals and head out on a dozen different delivery routes. Betty-Anne Gould of Westhampton volunteers with both the Take and Eat program and a Meals on Wheels program, so she’s able to check in on some of the same people throughout the week and weekend. Gould says her 12-year-old Shih Tzu, Munchkin, who sits on a booster seat next to her, is a constant companion and has been helping her with deliveries since she began them about eight years ago.
Kevin Gutting can be reached at kgutting@gazettenet.com.