Boston woman works year-round to keep food pantry shelves stocked:

WEST ROXBURY – The holidays are a busy time for food pantries. But with the number of Massachusetts families facing food insecurity now at a staggering 35%, according to the Greater Boston Food Bank, keeping those shelves stocked is a year-round job.

Darra Slagle is passionate about food. And it comes in box after box, bag after bag, to Rose’s Bounty food pantry in West Roxbury where she is executive director. 

“I just love doing this. I love feeling like at the end of the day, my job meant something,” Slagle says.

“There’s always something to do”

And she’s tireless, wrangling countless volunteers at the pantry.

“There’s always something to do here,” Slagle said. “There’s so much work that nobody is ever at a loss.”

Rose’s Bounty puts together food bags every week to help 2,000 people in a state where food insecurity reaches one in three households.

“And this city, this state that’s so wealthy that nobody should be going without food on their table,” Slagle said.

Thousands of pounds of food orders

What Slagle gets little of is downtime. When she does, it’s at home making food orders for the pantry. On one day she showed WBZ-TV how she ordered more than 12,000 pounds. She will order 20,000 pounds for the entire week thanks to grants and donations.

“It’s a lot of effort on my part. Spreadsheets, I’m a big fan of spreadsheets,” she said.

Her drive to the pantry may be less than 2 miles from home, but passing these houses every day she says reminds her no one really knows the need behind closed doors.

“There’s probably a lot of mouths in that house to feed. Food’s expensive. Rent’s high,” Slagle said.

That’s what drives her to the pantry every day, ready for the next round of donations that will fill the shelves and help the homebound – the community Slagle wants to make sure doesn’t go hungry.

“It’s a really happy place to be,” she said. “And we’re all working hard to do something good for our community.”