PEABODY — Nutre Meal Plans (Nutre), a healthy-meal delivery service based in the city, donated more than 800 winter clothing items to No Child Goes Hungry last Thursday.
No Child Goes Hungry of Peabody is a nonprofit organization that delivers food to over 300 Peabody students, ages 5-15, each week. Founded in 2017, the original goal of No Child Goes Hungry was to provide food to children on weekends who were receiving free meals at school on weekdays.
“We found, really quickly, that there were a lot of kids in Peabody that would benefit from getting some food on weekends. Like a lot, like 120 out of just two of the eight elementary schools,” said Vice President and Executive Director of the organization Jarrod Hochman.
After four years, they are now able to bring more than just food to these children. This year, No Child Goes Hungry of Peabody will be donating plenty of hats, scarves, mittens, and socks to the 310 children they provide for, thanks to the help of Nutre.
CEO of Nutre Valentino Perrina said giving back is a big part of the Nutre business, and they have donated over 100,000 meals over the past three years to local organizations.
“Usually, with big nonprofits, you don’t know exactly where your donations are going, but we knew our efforts were going exactly to kids who actually need it, and who are local to us in Peabody,” said Perrina. “(It) was an absolute no-brainer.”
Nutre drops off weekly meals right to their clients’ doors, and serves New England and the tri-state area. Each week, they drop off a new, reusable bag filled with healthy meals and will pick up the old bag. They incorporated this pick-up method into their donation drive.
“We told all of our clients, when we go to your home, if you want to donate, put your donations in the reusable bag, we’ll take the old bag, and then we’ll keep your name and we’ll donate it for you. We had probably 70, 80 clients who donated clothes, but they donated a lot,” said Perrina.
Michelle Lucier, dietician and head of nutrition and customer service at Nutre, said they wanted a way to collect donations at the convenience of their clients.
“At first we were going to have pick-up locations because they (Perrina family) own a few restaurants in the area, and we were going to have people drop stuff off, but we service all of New England, so we didn’t feel like it was fair for our clients that live further away,” said Lucier. “So we thought if they put their stuff in their bag each week, we’re already going to your house anyway, we’re already picking up stuff from you, you don’t have to go anywhere, you can literally just order it (clothing) on Amazon and it’ll come. It worked out great.”
Lucier counted the items they collected. In total there were roughly 458 pairs of socks, 55 scarves, 52 hat and gloves sets, 145 hats and 168 pairs of gloves donated by Nutre to No Child Goes Hungry of Peabody.
Hochman said he worries about the kids in the winter, especially now during COVID.
“(The kids) walking around without hats and gloves and scarves is really sad, so it’s incredible to donate this and provide it to the kids,” he said. “I’m grateful for whatever anyone is able to provide to these kids, and it’s remarkable that so many different people and companies (donate), and Nutre really stepped up.”
For more information on Nutre, visit their website at https://www.gonutre.com/.
For more information or to learn how to donate to No Child Goes Hungry, visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/nochildgoeshungryinpeabody/.
