Sharing your piece of bread

Through her determination and dedication, Gemma Moran nearly singlehandedly changed the manner in which food is distributed to the needy in southeastern Connecticut.

Throughout her long life, Gemma E. Moran remained focused on her belief that no child should be hungry. Indeed, her work in southeastern Connecticut helped ensure that no resident, regardless of age, would go hungry.

“Help those who need it,” Moran told a Day reporter during an interview for a story published in April. “Don’t sit back and do nothing. … Do all the good that you can and then forget about it.”

The words were typical Moran. She dedicated her life to serving others, but shied away from the spotlight herself.

Moran died earlier this month at age 99 at the Groton Regency. Her death leaves a huge void in southeastern Connecticut. “Heaven gained another angel,” a commenter wrote in response to The Day article announcing her death.

Through her determination and dedication, Moran nearly single-handedly changed the manner in which food is distributed to the needy in southeastern Connecticut. She was instrumental in establishing the region’s largest food distribution center, a center that was later named in her honor as the Gemma E. Moran United Way/Labor Food Center in New London.

The food center serves 20,000 people locally each month. Annually, it provides some 1.8 million meals. Launched in 1988, the food center now has 68 member agencies that feed those in need.

Moran always empathized with those without material wealth. She grew up as the youngest of 14 children in Everett, Mass. Her parents emigrated from Italy. Before she was a teenager, she was forced to work in a factory to help support her family.

Yet, she recalled recently that despite the privations within her own family, she also always shared what she had. “The girl next door never had anything,” she recalled about a neighbor with whom she grew up. “I used to give her my piece of bread. I always gave away whatever I had.”

When Moran was still living in Massachusetts, she developed the concept of having labor unions partner with the United Way, which was more business oriented, for the purpose of community service. When her husband got a job with Electric Boat and the family relocated to southeastern Connecticut in 1970, she strove to replicate that partnership model locally.

While food was at first given away at a barn on Thames Street in Groton and stored in a former Norwich State Hospital building, Moran later was integral in establishing the New London center.

Through the years, the center has been supported by both casinos, numerous labor unions, the postal service, supermarket chains and many area businesses.

While Moran said recently she regretted the decision to name the food distribution center after herself, likely no one who knew her, worked with her and saw her tireless dedication in action would agree with that sentiment. In fact, having her name on the center she was instrumental in establishing seems a modest gesture, indeed, given her overall contributions to the region’s less fortunate.

“The key to giving is living,” she told a Day reporter recently. “The key to living is giving.”

Moran never stopped giving back. The entire southeastern Connecticut community owes her a debt of gratitude. She will be deeply missed.