Daily News

Orders Close Today for Delaney House Meal Pickup at Curran and O’Brien Funeral Home

SOUTH HADLEY — This is the final week for the COVID-19 pandemic food pickup taking place at Curran and O’Brien Funeral Home. Orders for the final week are being accepted until 2 p.m. today, June 3. Visit www.facebook.com/beth.w.dowd to place an order.

For the past five weeks, local South Hadley resident Beth Dowd has worked with the Delaney House restaurant coordinating individual meal pickups for the South Hadley community out of the Curran and O’Brien Funeral Home parking lot.

“I had been ordering meals through the Hadley pickup set up by RuthAnn Fitzgibbons, and she encouraged me to set up a South Hadley location because of the demand she was seeing for the South Hadley area,” Dowd said.

Much of the South Hadley community has taken advantage of this discounted meal opportunity, purchasing individual meals that are easy to reheat at a discounted rate of $5, she added. “Our first week, we had 125 meals ordered. Now we have grown to over 400 meals purchased each week.”

For many, this has been an opportunity to give back. Thanks to the generosity of the South Hadley community, monetary donations have been made to the Neighbors Helping Neighbors Food Pantry, and meal donations have been made to the South Hadley Police Department and Fire Post #1 and Fire Post #2 for the South Hadley Fire Department. Since Dowd continues to work full time from home, she enlisted the help of her family, especially her daughter, who is finishing up college, and her husband.

“I could not have done this without the help of my daughter and husband,” Dowd said. “My daughter is home from college and was able to treat this almost like an internship. It gave her some great work experience.”