CHELSEA, MASS. (WHDH) - The Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Foundation teamed up with La Colaborativa this holiday season to show the community they care.

“We’ve made a $100,000 contribution to purchase meals for families for the holidays,” president of the foundation Karen Voci said.

That donation helping La Colaborativa buy ingredients for holiday meals for more than 1,500 Chelsea families.

“Many of our Chelsea residents are undocumented. They don’t benefit from unemployment benefits, so this is all we have,” La Colaborativa’s Executive Director Gladys Vega said

Volunteers from Harvard pilgrim Healthcare showed up to help package the boxes and distribute them.

“We have 3,000 pork shoulders, 1,500 chickens, individual chickens, whole chickens, and a big ham, we probably have 2,000 of those for today,” Vega said

La Colaborativa also has a pop-up food pantry at their Chelsea headquarters to give the community access to fresh and healthy food during the pandemic.

“I think for me, this is my miracle of Christmas,” Vega said “To be able for 10 months to be able to give, to feed the community that I grew up with. So, for me, this is very special.”

The organization has no plans to stop any time soon either.

“We don’t know when we’re going to stop. We’ll stop when people begin to not go hungry,”

 

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