Salvation Army EDS members help Boston Police
Salvation Army EDS members provide Inauguration Day support
FITCHBURG » Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services members were called to Boston on Jan. 20 to support and provide first responders with food and hydration on Inauguration Day.
“We were there to help the officers protecting the peace,” said Salvation Army advisory board member Dave MacDonald, who is the EDS lead for Fitchburg, Leominster and Lunenburg.
MacDonald was joined by fellow EDS member Eileen Ramsden and others who helped to prepare and distribute food and water to over 500 police officers. MacDonald’s wife Betty MacDonald made 250 turkey-andcheese sandwiches and 28
pounds of American chop suey, Ramsden made 150 ham-andcheese sandwiches, and Linda Betti, who MacDonald is trying to recruit to the advisory board, made 10 pounds of fresh salad.
“We gave them food and water and let them know we care,” MacDonald said. “They were happy to see us.”
They worked with Director of EDS for Massachusetts Chris Farrand, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and Boston Sparks, an organization that also does disaster and emergency relief work, as well as another EDS crew from Lynn that stayed at the staging area at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center; MacDonald and crew went mobile.
In addition to distributing food, beverages and snacks to hundreds of first responders, MacDonald said they were “swarmed” with homeless people.
“It worked out, we were happy to help them,” he said. “It was a good day.”
Farrand said this kind of event is typical for what the eight EDS response teams in Massachusetts provide for communities. They were activated a few days out from Inauguration Day and told there were a number of scheduled protests.
“Knowing that it was going to be a tense day because of the political climate we wanted our disaster teams there to help respond if needed,” Farrand said. “I reached out to the teams in Fitchburg and Lynn to see if they could help — they are strong teams. I told them we could use some help feeding, and it was a chance to support some of our partners in this time of need.”
Farrand said the EDS teams oftentimes work alongside and interface with local, state, and federal organizations such as police, fire, MEMA, and Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide support in times of crisis, such as the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 and Cape Cod tornadoes in 2019.
“We provided over 1,000 meals a day during the Merrimack gas explosion,” Farrand said. “The Fitchburg EDS team was a great part of that response. It is volunteer driven, and when you have great volunteers it makes a big difference.”
MacDonald said when they arrived back in Fitchburg around 8 p.m. the evening of Inauguration Day they delivered all the leftover food to the Fitchburg Fire Department.
MacDonald said EDS also helped out during the week of the presidential election, distributing more than 1,200 meals to first responders, police and state troopers at the convention center.
“We do everything we can to help serve first responders,” MacDonald said. “This made me feel great knowing what we did in Boston.”
Farrand echoed those sentiments.
“We are invested in helping people and trying to keep people safe, and the more resources we have is better,” he said. “In some ways it is very simple what we do, providing a meal to folks doing incredible work and survivors and people who lose their home. But people value it and appreciate knowing we are there for them. It still surprises me the gratitude we get for these simple things. We are more than happy to offer what we can.”