Interfaith Social Services volunteers put together hundreds of brightly-colored gifts for underprivileged kids.
QUINCY – One by one, four-year-old Forrest Sammons picked up mini Snickers bars, Hershey’s kisses and fun-sized bags of Skittles, closed them in pastel plastic eggs and placed them in a box.
“How many eggs have you stuffed?” his mom, Jennifer Sammons asked.
“Like a zillion,” Forrest responded, smiling.
The Sammons were one of about a dozen families at Interfaith Social Services’ Easter basket assembly event on Saturday morning. For the 17th year, the nonprofit’s staff and volunteers filled baskets with stuffed animals, Playdough, chocolate bunnies, plastic eggs and mountains of candy before wrapping them in cellophane and tying them closed with a colorful ribbon.
“Today, everybody is an Easter Bunny helper,” Rick Doane, Interfaith Social Services’ executive director, said.
The baskets, which numbered over 400, will be given out to families over the next month at Interfaith’s food pantry.
“The expense of buying an Easter basket is something these families can’t really do, and their kids just have to go without,” Doane said. “If you have to choose between paying the electricity bill and buying an Easter basket, that’s what it comes down to.”
To fill the gap, volunteers, at least half of them children, spent hours over the weekend assembling the baskets. Food pantry clients come to Interfaith once every 30 days, so the baskets have to be made every year about a month before Easter. The baskets and supplies were all donated by locals in the community.
Paula Daniels, director of development at Interfaith Social Services, took off from her official duties and came as a volunteer with her two children, Ashton, 5, and Crosby, 2. She has been bringing her oldest to the event for a few years.
“I’m trying to teach my children about community service,” said Daniels. “I know Ashton gets it, maybe for the first time, that these baskets are going to kids who may have less than she does.”
The Interfaith food pantry serves about 500,000 meals per year and is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.
“When we were founded, it was to help kids. A group from Qunicy wanted to come together to help kids and we are still doing that 70 years later,” Doane, who brought his 4, 7 and 10-year-old kids, said. “It’s just a small way to bring joy.”
Mary Whitfill may be reached at mwhitfill@ledger.com.
