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Standish Lane resident Alisa Dong has only lived in town for about four years, but she’s already immersed in helping people. And she wants residents to help her provide Thanksgiving Day meals for local food-insecure residents.
A member of the town’s Family Action Network (FAN), Dong is its community connections chair.
“The First Congregational Church is generously allowing us to use their facility to accept donations from residents, and also to sort them,” she says. “We’ll do that Saturday morning, and we hope to have enough food to make 50 traditional Thanksgiving dinners.”
Asked who gets the dinner ingredients, Dong says they’ll take them next Tuesday to the Woburn Council of Social Concern.
“It’s a big event, sorting the donations,” she says. “It takes a lot of organization.”
Dong is no stranger to organizing things, having a degree in gene therapy and hematology. She’s currently on family leave from her job at Pulmovant, and is home with her pre-school aged son and her 3-month-old daughter.
When asked how she got the position of community connections chair, she said she was on the committee and as people aged out of FAN, she took on the role.
“I couldn’t do all of this without the other committee members Michelle Ellis and Carrie Monks,” she says.
The group is also looking for gift cards.
“We can’t provide fresh food,” she says, “so the recipients have to buy their own turkeys.”
She adds they particularly need gravy, chicken broth, juice, stuffing, cranberry sauce, Jell-O, pudding, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, cookies/crackers, and canned fruit and peas.
Donations can be left in the church’s lobby. And anyone willing to donate a gift card can contact the organization at communityconnections@fanwinchester.org to get Michelle’s address where they can drop off the card. Or they can send money through Venmo @FANWinchester.
In an email, Dong wrote, here’s how you can help out this year:
• Donate non-perishables by Thursday, Nov. 20 to the First Congregational Church https://tinyurl.com/FAN25donate
• Volunteer to assemble baskets on Saturday, Nov. 22 (9–11:30 a.m.) at Chidley Hall: https://tinyurl.com/FAN25volunteer
Winchester resident Joyce Westner is one of the founders of Winchester News. She holds a degree in English and journalism from Northeastern University. If you have a suggestion for either a Meet the Artist or Helpers Among Us resident, email editor@winchesternews.org.
