BOSTON — As the country marked the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, more than 1,200 volunteers turned remembrance into action in a coordinated effort to pack 400,000 meals for individuals facing food insecurity, to be distributed by the Greater Boston Food Bank. It was part of an initiative across the state and the U.S. to pack a total of 18 million meals. 

The local effort in Boston took place Friday, Sept. 11, inside the cavernous Track at New Balance in Brighton, where large folding tables were set up with packing stations at which volunteers assembled breakfast meals that included oatmeal packs, apples, cinnamon, and protein powders. The breakfasts were then bagged and sealed before being shipped out to a network of the Greater Boston Food Bank, of which there are six partner agencies on-Island. Across the 50 cities, more than 50,000 people volunteered their time.

The impressive and highly organized operation was led by UNIITE for Good, started by David Paine and Jay Winuk, who lost his brother in the collapse of the World Trade Center, because they wanted something good to come out of that day. It provided a chance to both honor the fallen on 9/11 and ponder the actual depth of food insecurity in our region and across the country. And here on Martha’s Vineyard, we are far from immune to this problem. Indeed, there are thousands of people on the Island who require food assistance.

Rising grocery and living costs, high inflation, and disruptions to assistance programs caused by the Trump administration have exacerbated an ongoing crisis. The Greater Boston Food Bank, in partnership with Mass General Brigham, produced a new study that revealed a doubling of the number of food-insecure in Massachusetts since 2019. The report found that 40 percent of households face food insecurity, meaning they lack consistent, reliable access to enough healthy food. Our community has also faced its own rise in food insecurity over the years. The Island Food Pantry, which receives 7,000 pounds of produce weekly from the Greater Boston Food Bank, had 5,700 registered clients in 2024, a steady rise since 2,200 clients in 2019, while more than 1,000 Islanders use SNAP benefits as of 2023. A more dramatic display of the growing need may be from the ready-made meals delivered by Island Grown Initiative (IGI), which runs the pantry: 56,353 deliveries so far this year, a nearly 25-fold jump from the 2,304 deliveries in 2018. 

And although the 9/11 remembrance for the 25th anniversary of the attacks offered a great deal of attention and energy to fuel the volunteers to address this problem, the truth is there are many causes that are inspiring small armies of volunteers to deploy in a myriad of ways. 

One of the efforts here on the Island seeks to combine a fight against the scourge of ticks and the illness they can spread, exacerbated by the vector of an abundant deer population, with an effort to feed those who are food-insecure. The idea is to increase the processing capacity in harvesting venison from donations as a part of managing the deer population. Tick Free MV, a nonprofit that launched last December, and the Agricultural Society are teaming up to expand the processing capability on the Island in a phased project that should start this hunting season. It can be read about on A1.

At the same time, the IGI and Island Health Care (IHC) are leading the effort to build a local “food is medicine” model on Martha’s Vineyard, in part through two new centers. IGI, which already serves almost a quarter of Islanders through its year-round food pantry, has plans in the works for a center for education and outreach, and IHC is designing a new healthcare space in Edgartown, both through the lens that food is actually medicine. It can also be read about on A1.

We applaud these initiatives and all efforts that serve the neediest in terms of food insecurity. We want to encourage all Islanders to find a way to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to help feed the food-insecure, to help house those who are living without a home, and to offer services that are needed. Our Island is given an unusual bounty of abundance and beauty, which makes it all the more important for those of us lucky enough to live here to step up and help those who are less fortunate.

No one should be left hungry in the commonwealth, or anywhere in the country, and certainly not on an Island like ours, with so many people willing to help and so much wealth available to be transformed into philanthropy.