2025 Recipient: Rachel’s Table

Representatives from Rachel’s Table pose with the WMCD Youth Team after accepting a grant of $7,800 on March 2, 2024.

After raising $16,500 for two recipients at our inaugural charity event in 2022, we wanted to add a third charity recipient for 2023, so we could raise more money and make a bigger difference! One of our youth team members at the time, Sarah Moriarty, brought forward the idea of supporting Rachel’s Table, a non-profit organization based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Sarah had sat on the Teen Board for Rachel’s Table in previous years, and after sharing more information with the youth team about the work Rachel’s Table does, we had selected a third recipient for our first ever public all-nighter!

In the simplest terms, Rachel’s Table works to battle widespread food insecurity across Western Massachusetts. Their work focuses on Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin counties, with some work extended into Hartford County in Connecticut from time to time. Rachel’s Table was founded in 1992 to originally serve Springfield and Longmeadow, and has since expanded their services to focus on four pillars: rescuing, purchasing, growing, and gleaning food.

As described on feedwma.org, the website for Rachel’s Table:

WMCD Youth Team Members Justin and Catherine with members of the Rachel’s Table Teen Board, moments after filling backpacks with food to kick off the new school year.

Six days per week, more than 200 volunteers collect food from local supermarkets, restaurants, caterers and bakeries, and deliver to more than 60 local organizations including food pantries, community meal programs, after school centers, shelters, and more. In addition, over 150 volunteers glean with us in local farms and bring to over 70 partner agencies or affiliated networks, or garden with us as part of our Growing Gardens program.

But Rachel’s Table also has a fifth pillar, one that they consider their ‘superpower’: their Teen Board. The teen board meets twice a month, from September to May, spending one meeting to learn about the critical hunger issues in the community, and the other meeting out in the community doing hands-on work to battle food insecurity. Here at WMCD, we love seeing other nonprofit organizations getting youth involved with their mission. As we continue to engage our own youth team in hands-on leadership work, it’s been an honor to have our teams of teens collaborate at events, such as the ‘Giving Back with Backpacks’ event back in September.

Growing our relationship with Rachel’s Table has been an important part of quantifying the impact we are making by raising money for local charity each winter:

The amazing $7,800 that WMCD contributed to Rachel’s Table of Western MA (RTWM) goes a long way to feed and nourish our local western MA community. That amount helps us provide the equivalent of 31,200 meals. Our operations are lean but mighty, and our mission is strong and solid. We feed people with short and long-term holistic solutions – from rescuing food from landfill and immediately giving it to over 65 agencies across three counties (Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin) to ensure no one goes hungry, to gleaning from local farms, and fostering sustainability and access through our garden program which helps people help themselves.

And so, as we move forward, and raise money for our 2025 all-nighter, we’re honored to continue supporting a charity whose mission and vision is so youth-oriented and community-focused. For more information on Rachel’s Table, visit their website, feedwma.org, and follow them on all their social media accounts.