UNE, community volunteers pack a record 200,000 meal kits to combat hunger across Maine

The fourth annual Meals for Maine event at the University of New England’s two campuses in Portland and Biddeford on Wednesday, Sept. 16, turned the steady assembly line work of nearly 500 volunteers into 200,000 healthy, nonperishable boxed meals that will help address hunger across Maine, reaching families facing food insecurity in all 16 of the state’s counties.

The effort marked the largest single-day undertaking yet for UNE’s Meals for Maine initiative, launched in 2023 with just 250 volunteers and assembly of 50,000 meals.

Wednesday’s event pushed Meals for Maine’s running total past 550,000 meals assembled and distributed to food pantries and individuals facing food insecurity in collaboration with the Maine Masonic Charitable Foundation (MMCF), whose statewide network once again extended the initiative’s reach to every part of the state, including a record 34,000 meals delivered to locations in Penobscot County.

Meals for Maine brings UNE students, faculty, professional staff, and community volunteers together through service to address food insecurity as a critical public health challenge. Held as part of the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance events each year, the initiative receives federal AmeriCorps funding, support from 9/11.org and the Popeyes Foundation, and is one of only a handful of schools nationwide — and one of the smallest — to receive financial support for its signature service event.

The experience of helping to address hunger in Maine and making that volunteer work an annual tradition is exactly what Trisha Mason, M.A., had in mind when she created the Meals for Maine event four years ago in her role as director of UNE’s Service Learning program.

Mason’s mission to get students engaged in impactful volunteer work and inspired to pursue a lifelong commitment to service results in dozens of similar programs that help vulnerable communities in Maine. But the Meals for Maine event is the biggest, and one that delivers an important message, particularly at a university that is the leading provider of healthcare professionals in Maine, Mason said.

“One in six children in Maine are food insecure,” Mason said. “It is a really critical health issue, and that's why I think it's so important for UNE to be addressing it because we are nurturing a generation of healthcare providers who should understand how being food insecure is affecting their future clients. This event is imprinting that understanding of food insecurity on our students.”

When asked who among them was the most enthusiastic about the event in the gymnasium of the UNE Campus Center in Biddeford, four young women smiled broadly and all at once pointed at Sosie DerKosrofian (Medical Biology, ’29). But, in truth, all five students were in high spirits as they compiled rice-and-bean meal kits.

DerKosrofian came alone last year to volunteer at the event because it’s part of the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance and her father is a police officer in Massachusetts. She wanted to honor him and the first responders who gave their lives on 9/11, so as a first-year student newly arrived on Biddeford campus, she looked for volunteer opportunities.

UNE’s Meals for Maine event delivered.

I think it's the heart and the spirit of the UNE community that enables this to grow each year” — Trisha Mason, M.A., Service Learning program director

This year — on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — DerKosrofian returned with four of her friends to join hundreds from UNE and the surrounding communities who volunteered to compile healthy, nonperishable meals for those who face food insecurity across the state.

“Those first responders who gave their lives on 9/11, they were willing to put everything on the line. This is my way of representing my dad and honoring those who gave their lives,” DerKosrofian said. 

DerKosrofian was among 125 students, UNE employees, and local community members packaging meals on the Biddeford Campus on Sept. 16; another 350 volunteered at the Meals for Maine event on UNE’s Portland Campus for the Health Sciences that evening.

For the Masons’ part, the event and the resulting impact the donated food has had across Maine is a win-win, said Susan Scacchi, executive director of the Maine Masonic Charitable Foundation.

“The Masons that were here last year just loved being in a room with the students and the energy that was here. Those who distributed the meal kits couldn’t get over the reaction from the food pantries about what they were getting,” Scacchi said. “Everybody seemed to love the meals. From families’ responses — the people taking the meal kits away — I don’t think there was a negative response.”

Trisha Mason said the MMCF’s support and passion for service embodies UNE’s own commitment to improve community and planetary health — for people everywhere.

“I think it's the heart and the spirit of the UNE community that enables this to grow each year and the reason people show up year in and year out with enthusiasm and with dedication to do something good for their community,” Mason said. “I think it's building a tradition of service that people get excited about.”

DerKosrofian, for one, is paying attention.

“In my education class last year, a middle school principal came into class and talked about how in the local community, 60% of kids are food insecure, and that’s just in our local neighborhood,” said DerKosrofian, who hopes to become a pediatric physician. “I want to get (other UNE students) more involved because we are fortunate to have food here, but many of those local school children do not.”

View media coverage of the event in the Biddeford Gazette, NEWS CENTER Maine, WGME CBS 13, and Yahoo! News.