For the past three weeks, veterans, military families and veteran service organizations have been picking up “vital food packages" at Gillette Stadium thanks to a partnership with the Massachusetts Military Support Foundation (MMSF).
These packages contain nonperishable foods and nutritionist-developed recipes to provide three meals a day for two people for 14 days.
On Monday, April 20, the project will be packaging up their one millionth meal for distribution. Once the packages are assembled, they will be loaded onto a Patriots branded truck and delivered to veterans in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont later in the week.
As of April 18, more than 961,800 meals have been distributed at the six different sites. Since March 31, more than 674,000 of those meals have been picked up at Gillette Stadium. The distribution at Gillette Stadium was originally planned for nine days and was scheduled to end on April 10. But when the stay at home orders were pushed into May, the demand for additional meals increased.
Thanks to the generosity of the MMSF, the Food4Vets program has remained open and has plans for expansion. Starting Monday, additional food items will be added to the vital food packages. A.C. Moore at Patriot Place will serve as one of the packaging facilities, where volunteers will sort more than 40,000 pounds of pasta that will be added to the vital food packages. Dairy, produce and frozen items will also be available.
This project initially began to support veterans and their families, but has since expanded to support local food pantries, homeless shelter programs and councils on aging. More than 50 local organizations have benefited from the Food4Vets program and more will receive support thanks to the expansion.
The Patriots Foundation, the Revolution Charitable Foundation and the MMSF are also accepting volunteers to assist with this initiative. All aspects of this operation will be compliant with the Center for Disease Control’s policies and emphasize social distancing.
Please visit www.massmilitarysupportfoundation.org to learn more about the program and the distribution locations.