Roxbury woman preparing Thanksgiving meals for 500 families
ROXBURY – Inside the Haynes House in lower Roxbury, Leslie Stafford is getting ready. She's looking over the massive amount of food that's about to be given out to 500 families for Thanksgiving.
This is the eighth straight year Stafford is overseeing the "Gratitude Project" for Madison Park Development Corporation.
Her official title for the nonprofit organization is Health Wellness Equity Organization, but more accurately it could be "Chief of Inspiration."
The meals are thoughtfully curated. They come with all the usual fixings, a mixture of shelf stable and fresh vegetables, and a $20 gift card.
"Not everyone wants meat, we have vegetarians some vegans" she Stafford said.
Friday it will all get bagged. Saturday it will be distributed. If neighbors can't make it down, Stafford will deliver it. This room will be the nerve center, but it's not the only time of the year it gets used.
"We have a nutrition class here. We really don't call it a nutrition class. We call it the MPP class: meal prep and participation class" she said with a laugh.
The free 4-week sessions run from February through November. They teach people how to empower themselves and improve their lives through nutrition. Stafford said neighbors come to her with all sorts of wants.
"'I want to reduce my sodium.' 'I want to reduce my sugar.' 'I want to increase my consumption of fruits and vegetables,'" Stafford has heard.
You can hear her passion and feel her positive energy just being around her. Yes, all this keeps her busy, but there's more.
"I also run [and] manage three community gardens and we take the produce from the gardens and use it in this class" Stafford said.
The gardens are all in Roxbury. The harvest just yielded 500 pounds and was collected by some incredible volunteers.
"During the week we have kids at the high school, the kids who are intellectually disabled, and kids that are intellectually disabled and at high risk," Stafford said.
She's on track to publish a garden recipe book "From Plot to Pot" in 2024. Her productivity is dizzying --but her motivation is bottomless.
"Coming from the projects, being raised by my grandmother. Diabetes, obesity. Those things that are in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan," she said.
Stafford will be honored with the Community Catalyst award Thursday night at Madison Park Development Corporation's annual fundraising gala, "Sparks." She'll will be center stage at the event, although for Stafford, it's never really about her.
"To know that you're impacting someone's life, you're changing someone's life, that is the biggest part of doing the work that we do," she said.
The funds from the gala will assist MPDC in its mission "To foster a vibrant, healthy Roxbury neighborhood that supports the well-being and advancement of the community."
You can learn more at the Madison Park Development Corporation website.