The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is delivering 250 semitrucks full of food and this week’s donations to spots in Boston, Massachusetts, and Hilo, Hawaii, marks all 50 states receiving deliveries.
Through America250’s America Gives initiative and the church’s JustServe platform, 250 trucks of donated food will be delivered to every state in honor of the nation’s semiquincentennial.
“At a time when the country can feel divided, the effort offers a different story: Americans of different faiths, backgrounds and communities coming together to help their neighbors,” the church said in a release.
The delivery in Boston went to Catholic Charities Boston and was 37,000 pounds of food. It arrived in the city Wednesday morning and is the second truck delivered in the Boston area.
Bishop Christiano Barbosa, an auxiliary bishop with the Archdiocese of Boston, said the donation demonstrates how food insecurity has “no boundaries of faith, race, or socioeconomic level.”
“As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States on July 4, when our nation adopted the Declaration of Independence, we owe it to people struggling now and in the future to eliminate food insecurity in this country,” Bishop Barbosa said. “Every child deserves an opportunity to be fed and grow up healthy. Every family should be able to have enough food on their table.”
The deliveries start in Salt Lake City and are driven thousands of miles across the country by employees with Deseret Transportation.
During a March delivery to a donation center in Virginia, Dustin Walker said it was neat to be a part of the church’s mission by driving the donations across the country to go to families in need.
The first five semitrucks departed Utah last November as part of the church’s participation in the nationwide service effort for the big anniversary year.
Kerrie Wilson, the CEO of Cornerstones Food Bank in Virginia, highlighted how it was important to create a relationship with other organizations because “no one organization can do it alone.”
Rosie Rios, the chair of America250, also joined for the Virginia delivery earlier this year, where she said she hopes Americans have a “renewed sense of patriotism” with all of the efforts nationally this year.
“I strongly believe that you can love your country and still want it to be more perfect, exactly as our Founding Fathers envisioned,” she said in an interview with the Deseret News in March.
America250 is a congressional commission that has been planning the nation’s 250th birthday with events year-round both in Washington, D.C., and in local communities across the country.
In total, the 250 truck donations will help provide more than 6.5 million meals to communities in need.
The Boston delivery Wednesday comes just a week after deliveries and volunteer efforts were made in Alaska and Hawaii, marking all 50 states receiving deliveries.
It’s roughly the halfway point, with more than 100 more deliveries to go.
