The stage at St. Michael’s Parish is filled with boxes of packed meals.
Photo Credit: Suzanne Gile
EAST LONGMEADOW — On Jan. 17, Suzanne Gile and a team of over 100 volunteers packed 21,633 meals for 11 food pantries across Connecticut and Massachusetts, after raising $8,500 and partnering with the agency End Hunger New England.
Gile got the idea after volunteering at meal packing events that local rotary clubs, partnered with End Hunger NE, put on in September 2025. She reached out to the agency to get a sense of what it would take to do one herself.
“I was told that for $4,000, raising $4,000, you could pack 10,000 meals,” Gile said. “That was the minimum and I go, ‘I can raise $4,000.’”
After speaking with St. Michael’s Parish in East Longmeadow and receiving approval on a location for the meal packing event, Gile decided to shoot for 20,000 meals instead of 10,000. To put together the money, she organized gift raffle baskets and raised $8.500.
“I literally went around to a bunch of local businesses, basically pitching the idea of what I wanted to do and what they’d be willing to donate,” Gile said. “I was able to create four separate baskets, sold raffle tickets for $20 a piece and then raffled those off the weekend before Christmas to four different lucky recipients.”
Gile said the event was planned in about two months and the local businesses completely stepped up in a very short period of time, all responding to her requests and donating within 10 days. Businesses that donated include The Pizza Shoppe, Grapevine Restaurant, Shaker Bowl, Beauty Times, My Main Squeeze, Tre Olive, Added Attractions, Gilbert’s Stationary, Giftology, Escape Therapeutic Massage, Healthtrax, Frankie’s Pizza, Ink N Thread, A. W. Brown’s, Comb and Collar and St. Michael’s Players.
She also collected donations through Venmo after publicizing the event and collections after mass at St. Michael’s Parish. She said that bankESB in Easthampton donated $500.
Gile said End Hunger NE uses the terms meal and servings interchangeably, so each bag held six servings of items like Rice-a-Roni or Hamburger Helper so the only thing people would need to cook the food is boiling water.
“What End Hunger NE does is provide us with all of the products,” Gile said. “They delivered all of the food that we used, like the beans, the oatmeal, pasta, soy, dehydrated apples, dehydrated vegetables.”
The main meals packed were apple cinnamon oatmeal and minestrone soup. Gile said End Hunger NE comes to the event with a coordinator that sets up assembly lines to help pack, and noted that she learned that meals can be packed incredibly fast. By the end, it only took two and a half hours to pack the 21,633 meals.
“They have it down to a science beyond any science,” Gile said. “It was absolutely amazing.”
She said that in this day and age, it’s important for the community to look outside of their own homes and figure out ways to help others and spread kindness.
“Whether you have $5 or $500 to contribute to this event or other events like this, it makes a difference,” Gile said. “Each meal costs 40 cents, and so that package of $2.40 is going to feed a family an entire minestrone soup dinner … a small effort can make a huge impact.”
Gile said she plans on making this a yearly event, but needs to catch her breath a little bit after planning this one, for the most part, independently. Next year, she wants to double the meal count.
