Meals for Maine event in 2025 helps to feed 150,000 across Maine

For the third year in a row, the University of New England hosted its “Meals for Maine” event on Sept. 17 to help fight food insecurity with volunteer support from the University and surrounding community, packing 150,000 nonperishable meal kits for distribution to all of the state’s 16 counties. 

This year, the UNE Office of Service Learning partnered with the Maine Masonic Charitable Foundation to help bring hundreds of meal kits into rural corners of the state by disseminating them through some of the foundation’s 170 Masonic Lodges, a collaboration that helped to better reach older adults, children, new Mainer families, and other vulnerable groups in underserved communities as far away as Houlton, Rangeley, and Newport. 

Launched in 2023, the annual event is part of the Sept. 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance across the country that unites people in service and honors the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. UNE once again received funding to support the meal-kit initiative from the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance organization — making it one of the smallest institutions in the nation to receive funding for its fight against hunger.  

UNE Director of Service Learning Trisha Mason, M.A., the event’s founder, said this year’s event was about connections.  

“It’s about connections to each other, to our campus, to the community, and the country, because this is … the largest day of service in our country,” Mason said. “It creates a connection to something greater than ourselves at a time when it’s really hard to find connections that are positive. I hope by coming together for two hours, the greatest connection this creates for students is to lifelong service.” 

Mason’s Office of Service Learning worked with the Office of Student Engagement, Division of Student Life, Undergraduate Student Government, and Graduate and Professional Student Association to bring together volunteers across both campuses to help assemble the meal kits in teams that followed an assembly -line approach to efficiently and safely packaging the meals kits. 

More than 100 volunteers packed meals at the UNE Campus Center in Biddeford, while another 300 helped pack healthy, non-perishable meals of rice and beans at Girard Innovation Hall on UNE’s Portland Campus for the Health Sciences. 

First-year students Sabrina Gray (Environmental Science, ’29) and Julianne Manlobe (Marine Biology and Biochemistry, ’29) both said they grew up in families that valued community service, and both came to UNE looking for opportunities to serve. The Meals for Maine fliers around campus drew them to the UNE Campus Center on Wednesday.  

“I like helping people in general, and my dad does, too. He helps the homeless a lot. So, I’m just inspired by him,” Gray said. “He’s a kind person. He goes out of his way to help people. I feel that’s been a part of my life.” 

For Manlobe, it’s her mother who has been the role model, demonstrating the worth in spending time helping others. 

“My mother works at a community health center, and a lot of the people she sees struggle with food insecurity or being unhoused. So, it's something I think about sometimes because I know I’m lucky to come from a family where we don’t have to worry about it,” Manlobe said. “I love volunteering. It’s always a positive experience because everybody here is happy to be here and to help others.” 

In 2024, hundreds of volunteers at UNE doubled the number of meal kits assembled the year before with a staggering 103,000 meals packed. The 2025 event increased it further in a stepped-up effort to pack 150,000 meals to help meet Maine’s goal of ending hunger in the state by 2030. 

In addition to helping package and deliver meals, the Maine Masonic Charitable Foundation also donated $20,000 to the event. Susan Scacchi, the charitable foundation’s executive director, said that next year, they hope to do more.  

“I sent out an email to the Masonic Lodges about these cases of non-perishable food and asked: ‘What do you guys want?’  There’s a bigger need than we were able to provide for this year,” Scacchi said. “So, hopefully, next year we will be able to raise more money to get more cases of food.” 

Through initiatives like Meals for Maine, the University is providing future health professionals with real-world experience addressing the most critical health problems of today, like food insecurity. Through UNE’s signature approach to interprofessional education on the Portland Campus for the Health Sciences, career-ready health professionals are prepared to meet the needs of patients, communities, care system, and the biotechnology workforce.  

UNE is one of the few independent universities with a comprehensive health education mission that encompasses medicine, pharmacy, dental medicine, nursing, physician assistant studies, the allied health professions, and planetary health and teaches the majority of its health professions on the only designated collaborative health sciences campus of its kind in Northern New England. 

Read press coverage in WGME CBS 13 (Sept. 17, 2025), Fox 23 Maine (Sept. 17, 2025) Saco Bay News (Sept. 18, 2025), Spectrum News (Sept. 18, 2025).