As a long-time school nurse, it makes sense that Denise Weaver would step up to help those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Weaver lives in Lynnfield but works at the Excel School in Chelsea, so fostering a bond between the two communities is important to her.
She helped build a bridge between the two regions this year by setting up a massive donation drive in Lynnfield to help those in Chelsea affected by the pandemic.
It started in April, when Chelsea School Committee Chairperson Kelly Garcia sent out a request for donations to her network in the Chelsea school system.
Weaver, who had worked as Kelly’s middle school nurse at Excel Academy, answered the call. She put out a Facebook post requesting donations on a Lynnfield community page.
“I never post on that,” she said. “But I thought, ‘what the heck. Why don’t I try?’”
The community response was enormous. Weaver was able to fill an entire van with donations of food and other supplies.
The donations are coordinated and distributed by the Chelsea Collaborative, a community organization that focuses on a variety of issues facing the Chelsea Latinx community, including tenants’ rights, employment initiatives, and feeding and clothing those in need.
Weaver communicates with the Collaborative to determine what sorts of supplies they need most. After her initial work with the Collaborative, she began to expand the types of donations she collected from food to diapers, baby wipes, clothes and personal hygiene products.
The first time Weaver dropped off her donations, she was shocked at the need that she saw.
“There were lines for three blocks,” she said. “And it clicked: these people need help.”
Since then, Weaver has delivered a van full of donations to Chelsea every single week.
“I just haven’t stopped,” she said.
During the summer, she coordinated a toy drive so each family could get a toy along with their food and supplies. Lynnfield was able to collect two vanloads of high quality toys for children in Chelsea.
“It was like Christmas in July,” she said.
The support from the Lynnfield community reached all the way across the country. One former Lynnfield resident who has since moved to California contacted Weaver to let her know that she had ordered a box of supplies from Amazon.
“When my van is full, I take it over,” she said.
Garcia, who also works with the Chelsea Collaborative, estimates that her organization has been able to give away 7,000 boxes of supplies daily — much of which were collected from the Lynnfield community.
“I can’t express how grateful we are to Denise and the Lynnfield community,” said Garcia. “I wish that I could send a virtual hug to anyone that has helped this cause.”
Garcia’s cousin died in May, leaving his partner unemployed and struggling to support her children during the pandemic. The Lynnfield community stepped up again in a big way.
“Denise rallied the troops again and did another donation drive,” said Garcia. “And we were able to clothe our three little boys.”
Weaver plans to continue the donation drive for as long as necessary.
“It made people feel really good,” she said, “We can’t do much. But if we gave a bag of food, we did something.”
Guthrie Scrimgeour can be reached at [email protected].
