Greater Boston Food Bank Grant Gives Mansfield Food Pantry an Upgrade

MANSFIELD—The Mansfield Food Pantry has purchased two new freezers that have significantly expanded the amount of frozen food the Pantry can accept, thanks to a generous grant from the Greater Boston Food Bank.
The grant paid for one brand-new, 42-cubic-foot stainless steel freezer that was delivered in the summer of 2024. The Pantry was also able to purchase a new 21-cubic-foot refrigerator-freezer that arrived in January 2025, which replaced a 30+year old kitchen refrigerator.
So, how much frozen food fits into a 42-cubic-foot freezer? You might be surprised!
The Pantry recently received a shipment of frozen ground turkey with each box holding 16 one-pound packages. Each shelf inside the new freezer can hold three of these boxes, and there are four shelves.
If packed from top to bottom, the Pantry can store 12 boxes with nearly 200 packages of ground turkey for our shoppers (and there’s still space to fit in a few more items!). This has had a huge impact on the Pantry’s ability to provide for shoppers.
“The new freezers give us the ability to order what we need, and not have to watch our space,” said Pantry Property Manager Richard Kelsay.
Here’s a recent example of how the Pantry’s extra cold storage space came in handy.
In January, a local department store was renovating a freezer. The store needed to donate 1,100 pounds of healthy, delicious frozen food—fast. They asked the Pantry if it could accept the shipment.
With the increased cold storage capacity in the two new freezers, the Pantry was able to accept all 1,100 pounds. The donation included several boxes of ice cream—not something the Pantry often has on hand to distribute.
“The store had to get rid of food in a hurry,” Kelsay said. “We were able to take it, store it, and give it to our clients, which made our shoppers very happy. Because of these freezers, we were able to help out those who needed it.”
The new cold storage also allowed the Pantry to accept restaurant meals.
As part of its opening celebration in November, Sweetgreen, a new restaurant in Mansfield, promised to donate one prepared meal to the Pantry for every meal purchased on opening day.
Using the space in the convertible refrigerator-freezer, starting in January, the Pantry has been able to accept approximately 80 pre-packaged meals per week from Sweetgreen. Shoppers are so thankful for the fresh, delicious meals!
The Greater Boston Food Bank also provided a technology grant that allowed the Pantry to purchase a new iPad and a laptop.
The iPad was selected due to its flexibility and ease of use, especially during our annual re-registration this past fall. As an extra bonus, due to the improvement in technology, the Pantry was able to gather additional information about our shoppers that will be used to better serve them in the future.
Maria Smith, Committee Member and the Inventory and Distribution Coordinator for the Pantry, explains how this upgrade has made a huge difference in our operations. “Having an iPad and laptop for the Pantry's annual re-registration process saved both time and money as paper use for registration forms was zero. Previously, paper forms were entered into the Pantry's database by volunteers. We have over 300 shoppers, and reading and entering information for all of those folks, especially email addresses could be a challenge. This past year, shopper information input to the iPad and laptop were automatically updated into our Shopper database, giving us real-time data as to who has registered and who we needed to follow up with. We continue to use the iPad weekly for new shopper registrations.” These are better tools for the Pantry to help put food on their tables.

The laptop purchased with the technology grant was used extensively along with the iPad during our annual year-end inventory process. Typically, the very paper intense procedure was simplified to an online process which streamlined our reporting, saving many valuable volunteer hours.
Thank you so much to the Greater Boston Food Bank for your generous grant program!!