Volunteer Spotlight: Larissa Hordynsky

In reaching out to our schools, local businesses, community organizations, PTOs and others, Food Drive Coordinator Larissa Hordynsky has seen so much good in our community. She’s worked with cub scout troops that collect food and then insist on sorting and shelving it themselves. She receives deliveries from houses of worship that collect two or more carloads of donations at a time! “Temple Shalom had to rent a truck for all their donations,” she recalls. “That’s a good place to be — when the donation is so overwhelming there’s no room to stock everything.” She’s had cultural groups like the Newton Cantonese School collect culturally appropriate food. And she’s learned about organizations she never realized existed: “Charles River Center for people with developmental disabilities delivered a food drive yesterday with three of their program participants, who were very thankful and happy to be able to help.”

Larissa especially loves working with schools: “It‘s really fun to work with the kids. They are very businesslike in their approach,” she says. “They have a job to do and darn it, they are going to do it.” She’s also noticed a delightful trend of young people running food drives for their bar and bat mitzvah projects. “When we learned that their mitzvah projects would benefit the Newton Food Pantry, I assumed each of their guests would bring one item.” she says, “But guests have been showing up with grocery bags full of food.”

In 30 years of involvement in Newton community affairs, Larissa Hordynsky didn’t think anything about the city could surprise her. Being involved with the pantry was an eye-opener. “That’s when I realized how many families in Newton are food insecure,” she recalls, “Newton really appears to be an affluent community, but if you look closer, there are people all around us who don’t have what they need.” 

But, our community is up to the challenge, especially this time of year. “Thanksgiving season is the busiest time for food drives,” she says. “We must have had over 20 drives in the five days leading up to Thanksgiving.” However, the Newton Food Pantry and various community organizations hold food drives throughout the year. Contact Larissa via email (fooddrivecoordinator@newtonfoodpantry.org) to organize a drive.