Northampton teen Anya Sood (left) and her sister Avni stand together during an October community cook-in, with homemade meals delivered to the Northampton Survival Center and United Way of Pioneer Valley.
Photo credit: Anya Sood
NORTHAMPTON — As hunger rises, one Northampton teenager is fighting food insecurity across the Pioneer Valley through volunteer cooking marathons and other philanthropic endeavors.
Anya Sood, a Northampton resident and student at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Gill, has led efforts through Meal4Everyone, a local nonprofit founded in 2024 that collects surplus food from restaurants and grocery stores and distributes the leftovers to those in need.
Sood coordinates the new Meal4Everyone local chapter, which has focused on supporting organizations in the Pioneer Valley like the Northampton Survival Center and United Way of Pioneer Valley. Earlier this year, her efforts began by collecting unsold bagels and nonperishables to donate to the survival center. The work quickly expanded from there into a community-wide effort that has now prepared hundreds of pounds of warm meals for families experiencing food insecurity from Hampshire County to Springfield and Holyoke.
“Once I realized how much impact came from just donating bagels every week as an ongoing effort, I thought, what is the impact I could have if I brought the neighbors on my street together to cook together to prepare warm food for our neighbors down in Holyoke, in Springfield, and across Northampton?” Sood told Reminder Publishing. “I think for me it was how can I go a step further and provide fresh food instead of just nonperishables, so that was my idea with trying to have community cooks on my street.”
Working alongside neighbors, local businesses and community volunteers, Sood has led efforts to combine everyday food rescue with volunteer bulk-cooking events to feed residents facing food insecurity. Looking to do more than redirect leftover food and nonperishables, Sood took an old-fashioned approach, going directly to neighbors to see if they would be interested in getting involved through community drive-ins.
In the first cooking session, neighbors prepped dishes at home and then consolidated them for drop-off. For the second build, Sood again teamed up with community volunteers in the common kitchen at Rocky Hill Cohousing, turning a small crew of six neighbors into a high-efficiency food prep assembly line.
All meals were packaged and delivered directly to frontline organizations, including the Northampton Survival Center and other local food pantries. With that effort, the local Meal4Everyone chapter achieved a major milestone, reaching over 140 pounds of cooked and packaged fresh, balanced meals across two community home events. Volunteers prepared completed dinners of penne pasta tossed with fresh zucchini, sweet cherry tomatoes, rich marinara sauce and baked garlic bread.
“A lot of people want to help address hunger in our communities, but they don’t always know where to begin,” said Sood. “By bringing neighbors together in the kitchen, we make it simple and direct. You chop vegetables, boil pasta, and package warm meals side-by-side with your neighbors. In two hours, a small group can feed dozens of families.”
Sood added that seeing her neighbors and other community members come together made her grateful to be part of the community.
“I would say I’ve gotten a lot closer to all of my neighbors because of this. They’ve really helped me expand the nonprofit as well. I would go up to people’s doors and have a conversation with them,” Sood explained. “What’s so awesome about Northampton and about Western Massachusetts is I never got a no. People are so engaged in their community and eager to help one another, and that just pushed me even further to getting more people involved in this initiative.”
In addition to the cooking-build effort, Sood has maintained a weekly food-rescue pipeline, regularly collecting surplus baked goods from community staples like Tandem Bagel Co. and Stop & Shop to redirect quality food to shelters and pantries before it goes to waste.
She said that both the Northampton Survival Center and United Way of Pioneer Valley have expressed gratitude for her efforts. While she and fellow community members have been making this effort, the challenges of food insecurity still exist, and there’s always more that can be done.
“It’s never-ending,” Sood added. “My goal is to inspire others around me to mitigate this issue as well. That’s the conversations I’ve had, especially with United Way. I’m very close with them, and it’s more like. ‘how can we get students who live in the Springfield area and the Holyoke area involved in this as well? How can we inspire a younger generation to recognize food insecurity prevalent in our area?’”
With the success seen so far, Meal4Everyone’s Pioneer Valley branch is now preparing to turn these pilot events into a permanent, recurring monthly program. To expand production, the group is seeking:
• Kitchen volunteers: Community members, student groups and families of all skill levels interested in joining upcoming meal builds.
• Bulk ingredient donations: non-perishable staples (pasta, marinara, sauce, olive oil), fresh produce and food containers
• Local business and farm partnerships: area grocers, farms and food businesses willing to provide in-kind ingredient sponsorships or surplus produce rescue.
“Our goal is to show that a few hours on a weekend can make an immediate, tangible difference,” added Sood. “We started with six volunteers around a kitchen island. If we can grow that to 20 or 30, we can triple the fresh, warm food reaching our neighbors every month.”
Community members interested in volunteering, donating ingredients or supporting future meal builds can visit www.meal4everyone.org or contact Sood directly at anyaysood@gmail.com.
The monthly cook-at-home event continued on Nov. 7, as the local Meal4Everyone chapter spent another day preparing meals delivered to the Survival Center and United Way.
As the momentum continues, the plan is to alternate between the community drive-ins and community cooks each month. She will also continue to collect donations of nonperishables and regular donations to support these organizations in the fight against food insecurity.
Sood said the experience has helped her develop her leadership and communication skills. As a high school senior balancing school and college applications with this effort, Sood said she feels there is no limit to what she can accomplish in community organizing.
“I feel like I’ve become a catalyst to start initiatives, to start action. I’m really proud of myself for trying to expand and create tangible change within a community that has helped me flourish when I was a kid,” Sood said. “It’s helped me recognize that when there’s a need in my community that I have the skills to try and mitigate it.”
Sood added that growing up in Northampton has also shaped her perspective. She said the community is full of people looking for solutions to problems within it, whether it’s food insecurity or something else.
“They really value accessibility and a clear way of reaching that accessibility. I think everyone here in Northampton is very willing to try and strengthen the community and to make sure everyone has the necessary resources that every human deserves,” Sood said. “It’s truly powerful how everyone in Northampton wants to help. There’s always a sense of ‘I can help you, or I will help you.’”
To learn more about Meal4Everyone, visit www.meal4everyone.org.
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