Big Y in the News
Headquartered in Springfield, MA, Big Y is one of the largest independently owned supermarket chains in New England. Proud to be family owned and operated, we operate almost 80 stores throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts with over 11,000 employees. Big Y has been named a 2015 Employer of Choice by the Employers Association of the Northeast. Founded in 1936 by brothers Paul and Gerald D'Amour, the store was named after an intersection in Chicopee, Massachusetts where two roads converge to form a "Y".
Big Y in the News contains excerpts from press releases that have been sent to local media.
Food Donations Help Feed Others
Springfield, MA, (March 2nd, 2020)
In a chain-wide effort to help the less fortunate within their local communities, Big Y has donated over $11.5 million of food or a total of 5.7 million meals to help those in need throughout the region. Their recent Sack Hunger program caps off year-round daily efforts to donate food to all 5 of their local food banks.
The 5 food banks within Big Y’s local marketing area represent over 2,100 member agencies that benefit from almost daily food donations as well as Sack Hunger. They are The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, The Greater Boston Food Bank, Worcester County Food Bank, Foodshare of Greater Hartford and the Connecticut Food Bank.
In addition to Sack Hunger, Big Y donates healthy food to these food banks 6 days a week throughout the year. Two thirds of those 5.7 million meals include donations of meat and fresh produce, and bakery, non-perishable grocery items, frozen food and dairy products account for the rest. In fact, these almost daily donations have become routine and a natural part of Big Y’s operations. These food banks depend upon this steady flow of food to feed those in need.
Big Y’s 10th annual Sack Hunger/Care to Share program brought just over 20,000 bags of food to local recipients. Sack Hunger bags are large reusable grocery bags filled with staple non-perishable foods for local food banks.
Big Y customers purchase a Sack Hunger bag full of groceries for $10 and Big Y distributes that bag of groceries to a local food bank. In turn, the food banks distribute the filled sacks to area soup kitchens, food pantries, senior food programs, day care centers and more throughout their member agencies. In addition, customers had the option of purchasing a “virtual” bag in store or online where proceeds were used by many agencies to purchase turkeys or whatever was most needed.
Since its inception, 10 years ago, over 175,000 bags have been donated through this program which typically runs through November and December of each year.
According to Charles L. D’Amour, president and CEO, “We are proud to partner with our local food banks every day of the week. During the holiday season, our Sack Hunger program makes it easy for our customers to provide nutritious, non-perishable staple food to those less fortunate within our community. We are grateful to our customers who help support our friends and neighbors in need. In fact, all of their donated sacks of food have already been distributed to area food banks.”