NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Since 1987, the Berkshire Food Project has been alleviating hunger, food insecurity, and social isolation earning it our July Community Hero of the Month designation.

 

The Community Hero of the Month is a 12-month series that honors individuals and organizations that have made a significant impact on their community. This year's sponsor is Window World of Western Massachusetts. Nominate a hero here.

 

The program was started by a group of Williams College students with local support and encouragement. The community was hard hit in the years following the downsizing of Sprague Electric and GE, and the closure of other mills, putting thousands of people out of work in the region. 

 

It started off small, offering regular free lunches in North Adams twice a week. Today it has grown to serve fresh nutritious meals from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., five days a week in the First Congregational Church. 

 

"We serve sometimes between 50 and 100 people every day here, that come walk through our doors. We provide a wholesome meal for them, made with ingredients that are [mostly] donated to us throughout the community in Berkshire County," said Lesa Bennett, kitchen manager.

 

"We did about 39,000 meals in 2024 and through the end of April [this year] we are at pace to exceed that this year," Tim Faselt, board president, said. 

 

The need in the community is expands yearly, which has contributed to the nonprofit's growth, Faselt said. 

 

It was demonstrated that it is not possible to do the work they do without its community partners and volunteers. The organization's volunteers donated over 6,075 hours in 2023 and 7200 hours in 2024.

 

"The consistency of our volunteers is amazing, and they take it to heart. They're good with everything. They help prepare the foods, they help clean, they help serve our guests with dignity. I mean, they're great people. We're so very, very grateful," Bennett said. 

 

"What we see is our heroes here. And then our heroes are coming in, too. How hard as it is, if you see people that enter our door, they're heroes as well, because they come from all different walks of life and a lot of them have a difficult time even entering our door. So, it's great to see them." 

 

Emilee Eichorn, who volunteers through Berkshire Family and Individual Resources, said she loves volunteering because it means she's helping the community.

 

"I get to see people who get to eat, and knowing that people are getting the help they need makes me a very happy person," she said.

 

"I feel like it's important, because not just helping people, but I feel like just coming together and meeting people and just coming to have as a community, I feel like that is extremely important."

 

The food is prepared onsite and the ingredients from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Walmart, Big Y, Stop & Shop, and other businesses. 

 

"Every day we receive donations from different businesses around the community," Bennett said. 

 

"Berkshire Bounty is our largest group that supports us as far as donations throughout Berkshire County. We really rely on them with finding the local farms and connecting us with the local farms … they also have helped us find volunteers to pick up our donations for us, which is huge because that takes a lot of time."  

 

Additionally, some of the meals are prepared to be distributed by Berkshire Transport to organizations, including Louison House, Have Hope Recovery Center, UCP of Williamstown, and more, Faselt said. 

 

Roots Teen Center is one of the organizations that receives meals because it is constantly trying to find healthy alternatives to providing food stability for youth in the center, said Kenny River, the teen center's program and volunteer coordinator.

 

"We partnered with the Berkshire Food Project, where we receive food every week, we provide it for the youth in our space during that Thursday, and then anything else gets donated to other organizations as well," he said. 

 

"They provide us with some pretty healthy options for the kids to be able to enjoy and we want to make sure that our youth are being able to be fed. We don't know what their situation is at home, so we try to provide that for them as much as possible."  

 

While the food project's patrons are getting hot meals, they have access to other social services. 

 

"We will have other social services present in our dining room and it's important that we're not all trying to duplicate our efforts, but that we work with each other for the benefit of our neighbors in need," Faselt said. 

 

"There can be too much duplication, and I think we've done a good job as a community to reduce that as much as possible … funding is limited. The funding dollars are not infinite. So, efficiency creates more bang for the buck." 

 

There are two important aspects of the hot meal site — alleviating social isolation by encouraging guests to socialize during meals and the kindness of its volunteers, he said. 

 

"I would define a Community Hero as somebody who gives a general oversight to the needs of the community and then acts on that and the Berkshire Food Project has been able to consistently provide meals and prepped meals for the community and for so many years," River said. 

 

"I think that if anybody could be considered a Community Hero it would probably be the Berkshire Food Project."