Hearts to Help

By Jordyn Forte 

A heart here, a heart there – it only took days for an abundance of red and white heart signs to appear on front lawns, telephone poles, and business storefronts throughout the local community. 

Now, there is a heart on nearly every corner. 

The fundraiser, titled Attle-Boroughs Have Heart, was organized by the South Attleboro Lions Club.

Each sign was sold for a minimum donation of $5, and the proceeds were then donated to eight food pantries in the surrounding area. 

The largest hunger-relief organization in the United States, Feeding America, estimates that approximately 17 million people in the country could become food insecure because of the pandemic.

Longtime member of the South Attleboro Lions Club, Jesse Armell, said that he thought of the idea for the Attle-boroughs Have Heart fundraiser after seeing a similar project executed in Westport during the previous fall. 

“It’s hard to come up with projects that we can do during this day and age, so this was ideal,” Armell said.

 

And, the local community seemed to agree; in just two-and-a-half weeks, the Attle-boroughs Have Heart fundraiser sold all 2,000 of their signs, raising a total of $15,000.

Armell attributes the success of the fundraiser to both the dedication of those who helped to sell the signs even on bitter-cold, snowy days, as well as to the goodwill of the local community. 

“People were very, very generous. They would hand us $20 and tell us to keep the change,” Armell said, “and some people didn’t even want signs, they would just hand us money.” 

One volunteer selling signs at The Central Congregational Church in North Attleboro, Walter Thibodeau – a five-year member of the South Attleboro Lions Club, reported only receiving $20 bills on one of the days that he worked his typical four to five-hour shifts.

There was also an instance where he encountered an individual who did not purchase any signs, but instead donated a box full of non-perishable food items to the Attle-boroughs Have Heart fundraiser’s cause, Thibodeau said.

“Another time, I even walked away with $100 in my pocket at the end of the day, but I had only sold three signs,” Thibodeau said. 

“I wasn’t surprised by people’s generosity, though,” Thibodeau added, “as I’ve met a lot of giving people while volunteering with the Lions.” 

Those who received donations from the Attle-boroughs Have Heart fundraiser include: Food and Friends, the North Attleboro YMCA, the Hebron Food Pantry, St. Joseph’s Food Cellar, St. Theresa’s Food Pantry, Murray Universalist Food Pantry, and Bethany’s Village Fellowship.

Pam Tarallo, the overseer of all of the soup kitchens in the Attleboro area, expressed gratitude for the monetary donations made by the South Attleboro Lions Club on behalf of the Attle-boroughs Have Heart fundraiser, noting how beneficial they were, especially given the pandemic-imposed circumstances. 

“When the pandemic hit we had to change our whole strategy and approach in helping others. The increase in the need of the local people that we served was trifold – we went from serving 22,000 meals a year to over 46,500 during the pandemic alone,” Tarallo said. 

Pleased with the fundraiser’s success, Armell expressed his desire to continue helping the local community fight food insecurity throughout the pandemic – an issue that Bridget Lawrence-Miegs, director and manager of the farm at Stonehill College, suggests is directly correlated to issues imposed by the Coronavirus outbreak.

“COVID-19 has increased food insecurity because it threatens access to food through loss of income, causing people to purchase cheaper and less nutritious foods. 

With the awareness that many shelf-stable foods are processed and lack nutrition, the need for fresh, nutritious produce has also increased, and we will continue to work with our community partners to address this need,” Lawrence-Miegs said. 

The Attle-boroughs Have Heart fundraiser has also begun to quickly spread into neighboring towns, who have since adopted their own versions of the fundraiser, all of which give back to the local communities in one way or another.

“It’s going on everywhere. It’s something that’s spreading. And, it’s something that needs to spread,” Armell said.