Anchor Food Pantry delivered 135 complete turkey dinners to residents in Swampscott, Nahant and Lynn on Sunday to help ensure everyone can enjoy Thanksgiving.
“We are just incredibly grateful to the town of Swampscott and our neighbors who have embraced and have been more than generous with their cash contributions and their food contributions,” said Board Member Diane O’Brien. “We couldn’t do it without them.”
O’Brien joked that Sunday’s effort felt like a “military operation.” She went to Stop & Shop with a U-Haul, and volunteers then packed items into bags for delivery. The turkeys were donated, and Periwinkles provided the pies, O’Brien said.
Each family received three bags: one with a turkey, one with produce, and one with nonperishables. Altogether, the items amounted to a full Thanksgiving feast, O’Brien said.
“It’s a real community effort,” O’Brien said. “We had the Boy Scouts putting together bags for us. The Swampscott High School basketball team did as well.”
Years ago, Maureen Yasi, who is now an Anchor Food Pantry board member, started the Thanksgiving food donation effort with her friends. She identified families in Swampscott and gathered turkeys, squash, rolls, and other holiday fixings.
“They each took on a part of Thanksgiving, and they delivered it,” O’Brien said.
When Yasi joined the food pantry board in 2020, she shared her experience, and the group decided to adopt the effort. Yasi and her friends still participate, O’Brien noted.
Anchor Food Pantry began forming in February 2020, with a board in place and plans to open that summer. But less than a month later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and changed everything. The town asked if the pantry was ready to open, and they did.
Now, five years later, Anchor Food Pantry supports the community through a wide range of efforts, from providing food at the pantry and its garden to back-to-school backpack drives, warm winter bag distributions and the Thanksgiving meals.
The need in 2025 is greater than in past years, O’Brien said. Last year, Anchor Food Pantry provided 95 meals. This year, that number increased to 135.
“We have increased about 30%,” O’Brien said. “It’s a huge community effort.”
According to Project Bread, more than one in three households in Massachusetts experienced food insecurity in 2024, which equates to around 2 million adults affected by food insecurity at some point within the year. Black and Hispanic households have faced the highest rates of food insecurity in the state, at 46% and 62% respectively. Since 2019, rates among Asian and White households have doubled.
Statewide food insecurity has climbed steadily, from 19% in 2019 to 37% in 2024. Project Bread notes that living at or below 200% of the federal poverty level strongly predicts food insecurity.
In Swampscott, the poverty rate rose to 7% in 2023, a 4.7% increase in just one year, according to Data USA. More than 1,000 families in the Swampscott area were affected by the loss of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits during the government shutdown.
On October 1, Congress failed to pass an appropriations bill, triggering a federal government shutdown that disrupted SNAP benefits. As of November 14, SNAP benefits have returned to their normal schedules and amounts, according to Gov. Maura Healey’s office.
