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Local elected officials answering calls for help by organizing, distributing food
By Thor Jourgensen | April 13, 2020
Requests for face masks and appeals for food have replaced stop sign and crosswalk complaints for elected officials fielding coronavirus calls from constituents.
“I didn’t get elected just to be an official. I want to help my community,” said Lynn Ward 6 City Councilor Fred Hogan who joined council colleagues and other city residents in mounting a daily food distribution campaign.
The Lynn council partnered a month ago with the Salvation Army on Franklin Street to organize, pack and distribute food provided by the Boston Food Bank, the Produce Connection, and grocery stores including Stop & Shop and Shaw’s.
Council President Darren Cyr said a fundraising effort raised more than $50,000 to date to purchase the food with more than 75 volunteers, including councilors, dropping off boxes filled with pancake mix, tuna, pasta and produce every day to homes in Lynn and other communities.
“We did 600 boxes the other day and then 800 the next day,” said Hogan.
Like fellow councilors and Board of Selectmen members in area towns, Hogan and Lynn Ward 7 Councilor Jay Walsh answer constituent calls ranging from traffic safety concerns to snowplowing and trash pickup gripes. But that was before coronavirus hit.
They are now providing information and aiding with service delivery to confused, sometimes anxious, residents. Walsh has focused in part on educating people about proper personal protection equipment disposal after noticing discarded safety gloves on West Lynn streets.
Saugus Board of Selectmen member Corinne Riley has answered calls since late March from residents looking for masks and trying to decipher grocery shopping rules. Her attention is now focused on ways to defer local-fee and property-tax payments to help unemployed Saugus residents.
“As leaders of the community, we have to provide outreach and be calming, or at least guide people to where they can get help,” Riley said.
Lynnfield Board of Selectmen Chairman Philip Crawford and fellow selectmen saw coronavirus at its most tragic when the pandemic claimed town resident Steven Richard.
Board members drafted a condolence statement and Crawford has presided over a weekly online update providing residents with updated coronavirus news.
Lynn School Committee member Michael Satterwhite has printed out at-home study materials and brought the lessons to students’ homes and helped grandparents who have custody of grandchildren navigate online school resource sites.
“I don’t want people to feel they are in this alone. We’re all in territory we’ve never been in before,” Satterwhite said.
Swampscott Select Board members take part in emergency discussions with town officials that Board Chair Peter Spellios said are “all driven from a public health perspective.”
He has fielded calls about state directives on essential business definitions and other concerns voiced by the more than 100 Swampscott business owners as well as residents.
“We’re hearing from residents concerned about paying rent and paying bills,” Spellios said, adding, “Everyone’s role has expanded over the past month.”
A Nahant Board of Selectmen member for just over two months, Mark Cullinan has called town residents during coronavirus to ask what they need and to be sure they know about local meal preparation and distribribution efforts.
“The biggest thing is trying to reach out to people who are by themselves who need food and other assistance,” he said.
Peabody City Councilor at large Thomas Gould has read online to local students for almost six years along with fellow Peabody Education Foundation members. His morning story times have taken on added poignancy with students confined to their homes.
“I always end each reading by saying, ‘Be kind to everyone,'” Gould said.