Dr. Wendy Zinn
Dr. Wendy Zinn
Emergency food distribution program/Hunger prevention/Families in need/Culturally relevant/Food insecurity
Nomination for Wendy Zinn for her exemplary service leading a food distribution program to those in need in the Boston Metropolitan area.
Wendy Zinn led the YMCA of Greater Boston’s Hunger Prevention Program to feed youth, seniors and families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms. Zinn and her team quickly pivoted to serve the city of Boston needs with food insecurity and transformed an existing network into an emergency meal distribution machine, bringing essential resources to the neighborhoods in the city of Boston. To create the food distribution supercenter, Wendy and her team partnered with the City of Boston, Greater Boston Food Bank, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Boston Housing Authority, and police cadets to deliver groceries to households with homebound residents and distribute culturally relevant meals to nine Boston Housing Authority throughout the city. Since March of 2020, the YMCA of Greater Boston has served more than 5 million meals and distributed over 250,000 grocery bags to the most vulnerable residents in the city of Boston in more than 80 locations.