The
concept on which Serve New England is based was an inspiration of
Californian Carl Shelton. Carl was a church deacon who, in the early
1980’s, worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa
challenged Mr. Shelton to return to the States to help the people in his
own country. She pointed out that thousands of people are physically
hungry, but that there are also those who have a “hunger of the spirit”.
Mother Teresa was speaking of the lack of community involvement in our
neighborhoods, and about the many people who live isolated lives here in
the U.S. A group of people from San Diego took this inspiration and
developed a program to encourage people to volunteer in their communities
using a food cooperative to reward them for their service.
From
1991 – 1997 we were an affiliate of World SHARE and we were known as SHARE
New England. In 1998, we became an independent nonprofit corporation
known as Serve New England.
Our founding in 1991 was made possible with support from several private
citizens from the Boston area, by significant private contributions, the
sponsorship of the Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, MA, and the direction of
the founder, Joseph Vaughan. Soon after its inception, Serve expanded to
encompass the six New England states.
Serve New England now logs over 75,000
hours of volunteer service each month, and provides healthy, nutritious
food to thousands of people throughout New England. We think
Mother Teresa would be pleased.
