Daniel's Table in Framingham loses 10,000 pounds of food after freezer breaks
FRAMINGHAM - A 60,000-pound capacity freezer trailer that should be full of frozen foods is completely barren.
"Now it's completely empty," Daniel's Table Founder David Blais said.
Daniel's Table is a free food resource for Framingham and Ashland families in need of assistance. The nonprofit's biggest investment, their giant outdoor freezer compressor died three weeks ago, which left them scrambling.
"We salvaged as much of the proteins as we could. We were very fortunate to only lose 10,000 lbs. We could've lost 60,000," Executive Director Sandra Montesino said.
They say a new one will cost them around $6,000. That's just to get up and running. Meanwhile volunteers in the kitchen are working feverishly.
These meals are to help feed the 135 Haitian refugees in Framingham staying at the Red Roof Inn and Motel 6.
Daniel's Table has been feeding people in Framingham and Ashland for the last 10 years.
This freezer is vital to their operations and couldn't have crashed at a more critical time, as they are feeding more and more families and refugees every day.
"Every single dollar counts. We need help restocking that freezer and the current refugee crisis we are facing we are adding six meals every week, breakfast, lunch and dinner so the freezer couldn't have died at a more inopportune time," Montesino said.
Here they offer a community freezer program, along with Daniel's Farmer's Market providing an immediate response to hunger. But an empty dark freezer stifles a big part of their mission.
"We need to get it up and running the capacity that we had is now lost," she said. At a time when the need has never been greater.
