LYNN — Yamila Ruiz and her partner, Nicholas Coppola, saw an increase in food insecurity when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and decided to take matters into their own hands.
It all started when the Lynn couple heard about two families in their neighborhood who had been struggling during the pandemic.
They started collecting food to bring to their neighbors, drawing from their own personal pantries and what had been stored at the homes of their family members.
A year later, Ruiz and Coppola now assist about 50 families with food donations that fill up their garage through what they call “North Shore Families Together/Familias Unidas del Norte de Boston.”
North Shore Families Together is not an official nonprofit, but that hasn’t prevented the pair from maintaining a steady volunteer base, which allows them to provide food staples — such as rice, beans and pasta — to families in need each week, Ruiz said.
Ruiz credits the positive word-of-mouth among Lynn-area communities for allowing them to expand their efforts throughout the North Shore.
“We’re just neighbors who are trying to meet our neighbors’ needs,” Ruiz said. “We also know that we’re a majority-BIPOC (Black, indigenous, and people of color) city here in Lynn that often feels like we’re fighting for resources, but in neighboring communities, there are so many resources, so that’s the gap that we tried to bridge.”
North Shore Families Together also offers assistance with dropping off daily school lunches. Ruiz said the volunteer drivers have encountered multiple families during their drop offs who were unaware of an initiative from the Lynn Public Schools, which offers take-home lunches during remote learning. Drivers have also reported that some families were too scared to get on public transportation to pick up those lunches from the school district.
At the height of the pandemic, Ruiz said a local mom — a laid-off restaurant worker — helped to cook meals for people who were infected with COVID-19. Ruiz said people could buy the meals on a “pay-it-forward” basis, meaning that one family would buy three meals, and would then buy another three to pay it forward to another needy family.
“This is very much a mutual aid-led project,” Ruiz said. “By creating this community of solidarity, not charity, we’re helping neighbors meet needs that frankly weren’t being met by the traditional power structures and the traditional social service agencies.”
Ruiz credits local food pantries and soup kitchens for all of the support that they provide, but said there are so many people in need of help who are not able to benefit from these organizations, which made her want to step in to fill that void.
She said many of her immigrant neighbors were not able to apply for unemployment and pandemic benefits, so North Shore Families Together provided information about local and statewide resources, which are provided inside the bags of food.
In addition, Ruiz said they also deliver donated household items such as beds and kitchen items, as well as necessities like diapers and toilet paper.
A year later, Ruiz said they were seeking ways to expand and incorporate fresh produce into their deliveries.
Ruiz worked with Lynn native Nathan Gray, founder of EcoBrick US, to search for a way to obtain fresh produce from community providers, which led them to McDonough “Mac” Scanlon, who owns High Road Farm in Newbury (where Gray now lives).
Scanlon has a community-supported agriculture (CSA) option at her farm, which will now be incorporated into the North Shore Families Together deliveries.
Thanks to a GoFundMe page and donations from local businesses and residents, Mac has begun planting seeds for the roughly 50 families that Ruiz works with. The CSA delivery will be bi-weekly and begin the first week of June.
Scanlon has a passion for farming, which she said was triggered by her work in the off-season as a mental health counselor.
“I saw how poorly people eat and how it really affects their mental health, and with all of the stress that has been going on in the world in the past year, it’s so important to eat well and feel nourished and safe,” Scanlon said. “This kind of led me to farming.”
Scanlon said she witnessed her patients eating a lot of sugar and carbohydrates, which gave them bursts of energy, but provided little to no health benefits.
Ruiz said one of the beautiful things about this partnership with Scanlon is the equitable access to organic, reliable nutrition because “food has the power to heal.”
With the farm, Ruiz said everything will be more logistically balanced and organized.
“With all the little acts of kindness congregated together, it makes for this really beautiful mosaic of people helping people,” Ruiz said. “We’re all in different boats during this pandemic. Some people are in yachts, other people are in canoes, and other people are swimming upstream. You may not know what situation some of your neighbors are in.”
Allysha Dunnigan can be reached at [email protected]