Ruth Broughton (left) gets help with her armband from Jeannie Colony before heading out on a previous Good Friday walk. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Next Friday, Ruth Broughton will do what she’s done for 35 years: participate in a Good Friday Walk for hunger, where she expects to walk 20 miles for Loaves & Fishes.
Harvard supports many good works, but perhaps none as fully as the Loaves & Fishes regional food pantry, especially through the Good Friday Walk. “Harvard is the heart of the walk,” Broughton told the Press in a recent phone interview.
An event that draws hundreds
It doesn’t take long for those new to Harvard to learn that Loaves & Fishes is important to the town, without even knowing what it is. There is the food drop-off box in the Post Office lobby, food donation drives at schools and local churches, invitations to bring Loaves & Fishes contributions in lieu of admission fees at local events. And then there is the nondenominational Good Friday Walk that draws hundreds of participants.
Co-founded by Broughton’s good friend, Harvard resident Charlanne Van Wormer who died in 2008, Loaves & Fishes grew out of a Good Friday Walk Van Wormer and friends brought to Harvard in 1983. Van Wormer, Broughton, and other parishioners from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Ayer had been participating in a Good Friday Walk in Hingham to raise funds to combat rural poverty in Mississippi. Three women, young mothers, thought why not bring it closer to home?
The same year, they also began to see closer-to-home hunger and started collecting food donations that were distributed through the Federated Church in Ayer. The communities’ needs and their actions grew into the Loaves & Fishes of today, which has its own home and staff on Barnum Road in Devens.
Serving 900 local households
“The response from the neighboring towns was astounding. What started as a simple act by three women has grown into a tremendous effort by the entire community,” says a history of the food bank
Loaves & Fishes provides groceries for more than 900 households in Ayer, Devens, Groton, Harvard, Littleton, and Shirley. More than 40 percent of its client population is children under 18 and seniors over 65. This year, the Good Friday Walk hopes to raise $29,000, mostly for Loaves & Fishes, but also for Sharing, Inc., an outgrowth of the original Mississippi charity.
The Good Friday Walk, Loaves & Fishes’ primary fundraiser, begins at the Harvard Congregational Church and follows a scenic, five-mile loop around Prospect Hill and back to the Common. Each walker is asked to raise a minimum of $25 to participate, individually or through contributions from friends, neighbors, and co-workers.
Some of the Walk’s longtime devoted supporters, like Van Wormer, have gone. Bayard Underwood, who died in 2010 at 93, walked until he was 91, telling his sponsors that they had helped him raise $40,000 throughout the years. Perhaps Broughton will surpass him. At only 77, she has some miles to go.
Broughton says it’s good to see the next generation taking over. “Now we have these young women who are about the same age we were when we started—talented, giving women. There are some incredible women running the walk now, like Becca and Jeanie”—co-chairs Becca Day-Newsham and Jeanie Colony.
Broughton regrets the recent school calendar changes. When the Friday before Easter was a half-day of school, rather than the full day it is now, many students and teachers would arrive to make up a late wave of walkers. “Children can be a significant part of the walk, and they learn there are hungry people among them,” she said.
‘It feels so good to do it’
At not much over 100 pounds, Broughton will be the heavy-weight of the Friday walkers, most of whom will opt for a single five-mile loop. Broughton is ready for the day. She stays in shape with the help of 25 miles a week on a treadmill at her health club and “a lot of treadmill trash” to read in the process.
March is fickle. But no matter what mood the month chooses for next Friday—wind and cold or warmth and promise—the long-time supporters and the new generation will show up.
“It’s a feeling you can’t explain. It just feels so good to do it,” Broughton said.
