Run with Lauren!

During our first COVID winter, at the beginning of 2021, I was feeling extremely helpless and was looking for ways for my family and I to do something, anything, that could help make a positive impact on people in need.  I stumbled upon a Facebook post about Grassroots Grocery (then Mott Haven Fridge) at just the right moment.  It was the perfect opportunity to make a real difference, not very far from where we live.  I immediately submitted my information so I could sign up as a food delivery driver.  

Before my first drive, I wasn’t ignorant to the people in need around us, but it was still hard to believe the disparity seeing the need so up close and personal. Each week a different member of my family, one of my four kids or my husband, would come with me to help make deliveries.  Some Saturdays we couldn’t even get the food into the local fridge before people would come to take it.  It felt good to give people something they desperately needed but it was heartbreaking and eye-opening to see the struggles others live with at the same time.

We continue to sign up to deliver food as frequently as we can, but no matter how many Saturdays we spend doing this, I will never stop wondering…why is this needed?  How is this fair?  There’s plenty of food to go around.  No one should be hungry like this.  I’m grateful to Grassroots Grocery for providing this amazing service and opportunity but I pray for the day when it is no longer necessary.

I’m also so so grateful for this new opportunity to accomplish my lifelong  (or at least adulthood) dream of running a marathon and it is so much more meaningful knowing my marathon fundraising efforts will benefit Grassroots Grocery. If that can’t get me over the finish line, nothing will!