Deliveries make all the difference

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

Delivering the Bishop’s Thanksgiving and
Christmas dinners is a sort of treasure hunt that ends in smiles on other people’s faces and increased enjoyment of his own holidays.

Robert Brady paints this picture of why he volunteers to deliver meals each holiday, and other work he does for Catholic Charities Worcester County.
Since the 1960s, the bishop of the Diocese of Worcester has been sitting down to a Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with anyone who needs a holiday meal and someone to share it with. But some people can’t get out to the dinner coordinated by Catholic Charities, so the agency arranges for meals to be delivered to their homes.
That’s where Mr. Brady, of St. Roch Parish in Oxford, comes in. He says he’s helped deliver these meals for about 15 years, when he’s been able to. (He retired from his veterinary service with the U.S. Department of Agriculture five years ago.)
Delivering meals led to another way to volunteer for Catholic Charities – getting food for its food pantry. He started volunteering to pick up the food after the coronavirus temporarily halted another of his services with the agency, teaching citizenship classes.
But what got him started with the holiday dinners?
 “Reading about it in The Catholic Free Press – about the need for volunteers to deliver dinners,” he says.
What keeps him coming?
“I like feeling that I’m helping people in the community, and also I like that the delivery is so well organized,” he replies. “Each delivery volunteer gets a little pack of cards. Each card gives you the name of the person receiving the meal, their address and phone number and clear directions how to get to the house or apartment. The … places where you deliver are grouped together logically.” Meals are delivered in Worcester and surrounding towns, and volunteers can request a route close to their home, he says.
“One aspect of it that I enjoy – it’s almost like a treasure hunt” trying to find the house or apartment, sometimes in areas he’s never been in, he says.
“Each card tells you how many meals to deliver to that house,” he explains, and other information is also included, such as the primary language of recipients.
“Generally, the people are expecting the meal,” so, even if they don’t speak English, they understand what it is when the delivery person holds up the package, says Mr. Brady, who speaks a little Spanish.
“Before COVID, occasionally someone would invite me in” to sit and talk, he recalls. “Occasionally I’ve had people give me a candy cane or cookies.”
But usually it’s a brief conversation at the door: “What are you doing for Thanksgiving, or Christmas?”
“I have the impression that most of them are going to be alone,” though, some have family members living with them and therefore will not be totally by themselves, Mr. Brady says. But they don’t appear to be sad.
“Mostly they’re smiling,” he says. “I have a sense that the emotional part is the main thing”– the bishop and Catholic Charities cared enough to reach out. “One or two meals over the year isn’t going to make that much difference in a person’s life but having the sense that someone cares can.” They say, “Thank you,” often with a big smile.
What does Mr. Brady get out of delivering the dinners?
“I enjoy my own Thanksgiving or Christmas meal more, knowing I’ve helped people in the morning,” he replies.
A couple years ago, Mr. Brady says, he began teaching a citizenship class for Catholic Charities. Since it was cancelled because of the coronavirus, he responded to an email request sent to Bishop’s dinner deliverers asking for volunteers to help at Catholic Charities’ food pantry at 10 Hammond St. in Worcester.
He volunteered. While there, he was asked if he could help pick up food that Catholic Charities gets from Worcester County Food Bank at 474 Boston Turnpike in Shrewsbury. So, he does that weekly, and is again teaching the citizenship classes, which have been resumed via Zoom.
At the food bank, Mr. Brady says, he and two other people collect the food allotted to Catholic Charities. There are cans and boxes of non-perishables, but also fresh vegetables and fruits – and meat in a walk-in freezer.
“I dread going in there because it’s below zero and has a fan blowing,” Mr. Brady says. “We work fast.”
Once the eight carts are loaded with food, they’re taken to the waiting U-Haul, where about six more volunteers join in packing the truck. After that, “typically, everybody heads to 10 Hammond St. to unload,” Mr. Brady says.
The whole process takes about four hours.
“At the food pantry we have a variety of people from around the world who help out, including a Muslim man from Iran,” Mr. Brady observes. “The people we serve, who come to pick up the food, are very diverse.”