Greater Boston Food Bank Honors State Sen. Joan Lovely

SALEM, MA — The Greater Boston Food Bank presented State Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem) with its State Senate Public Advocate of the Year Award for her efforts to help fight hunger among college students.

The award, one of the Food Bank's Partnership Appreciation Awards, goes to a person the Food Bank determines to be "a public official who has shown a strong commitment to the provision and protection of emergency food assistance and ensuring those struggling with hunger in our communities have enough to eat every day."

Lovely's Hunger Free Campus Initiative provides a roadmap for the Department of Higher
Ed to support 2- and 4-year public colleges and minority-serving institutions in implementing hunger-relief initiatives on campus.

"We are so grateful for the work Sen. Lovely is doing when it comes to tackling college hunger and dismantling barriers to healthy and consistent meals for students," Greater Boston Food Bank President & CEO Catherine D'Amato said. "As a lead sponsor for the Hunger Free Campus Initiative, she is acutely aware that food insecurity on college campuses is a barrier to success for students already struggling with the cost of living and tuition alongside their studies.

"Sen. Lovely routinely turns her words into action, and I am proud to honor her with this award and support her on this mission to end college hunger."

Recently, members of the MA Hunger Free Campus Coalition, a statewide coalition co-led by the Food Bank, met with Sen. Lovely's staff to discuss the strategy for passing the bill and securing funding in the state budget to reach the campaign’s goal of ending hunger on campuses in Massachusetts.

"I am deeply honored to work with and be recognized by the Greater Boston Food Bank for our work to address food insecurity," Lovely said. "Food insecurity can have profoundly negative impacts on people's mental, emotional and physical well-being. This is particularly so for vulnerable populations like our students.

"That is why I am proud to have sponsored the Hunger Free Campus Initiative this session to improve food equity and ensure that students at our state and public universities can focus on their studies. I look forward to continuing to work closely with GBFB to champion this important work on Beacon Hill."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

*Patch has partnered with Feeding America to help raise awareness on behalf of the millions of Americans facing hunger. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks across the country, estimates that in 2020, more than 54 million Americans will not have enough nutritious food to eat due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations.