In Person Lunch - Speaker Matthew Martin

Matthew Martin, The Outreach Program

Ending Hunger. Enriching Lives

Topic:  Ending Hunger in New England

In 2009, my wife, our 3 and 5-year-old children, and I were living in Northern Minnesota near my in-laws. I was a Lutheran pastor and Heidi was an elementary school teacher. A colleague of mine I had met in passing at a conference gave us a trip to Virginia after discovering how much school debt we were still in 13 years into our marriage (her husband was a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and they were too busy to go, but everything was already paid for). A few days into our first vacation in 5 years, Heidi woke up and said, “We need to move to New England.”

So I called the bishop and told her about the dream. She placed me at a church in Quincy. Heidi couldn’t find a teaching job, so she started to write. She is now an author, among other things (HeidiMartinHealing.com). The proceeds from her children’s book, novel, and other work feed more hungry New Englanders.

During the first 18 months of my call, our synod went through a process called Doing What Matters and then challenged us to “go where love leads and serve where love calls”. At the time (June 2011), 1 in 4 American kids were going to bed hungry (1 in 3 in Maine!), while 1 in 7 people on the planet were. I had done world hunger work for 17 years.

Now I’ve been the meal packaging guy for 12 years. We have partnered with 87 different kinds of groups throughout the region, feeding those who hunger in their neighborhoods. Lutherans, the United Way, Businesses, Schools, Non-profits, Rotarians, United Methodists, Food Banks, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians have each fed over a million. Catholics will be the next group to hit that threshold.

Before the pandemic, we had hit a 20-year low for food insecurity: 1 in 7 American kids were going to bed hungry (1 in 5 in Maine!), while 1 in 9 people on the planet were. We have fed over 40 million so far, a record 4 million in 2020. 48% of our meals are packaged for Greater Boston pantries (meals end up in the same area where the funding comes from). By comparison, 12% are for Worcester County and Western MA and 40% are for the other 5 New England states.

At the start of the pandemic, food-insecurity went up 146% in America, 150% in New England, 163% in Massachusetts, and between 168-182% in half of the counties in the commonwealth…to a level higher than when we started ending local hunger. All 7 of those counties were in Greater Boston.

Things have been improving.

2011: 2 million hungry New Englanders

2019: 1.4 million

2020: 2.1 million

2021: 1.7 million

Now: 1.45 million

Website: EndHungerNE.org