Star Wars robot R2-D2 cannot deliver Thanksgiving dinner to your door, but his relatives are doing the packing.
Immune from COVID-19, industrial robotic arms are assembling donated holiday food in a Boston suburb, allowing elderly volunteers to stay home during a pandemic that has doubled the number of hungry US households.
In Bedford, Massachusetts, the whirring arms studded with suction cups pick, sort and pack such Thanksgiving staples as potatoes and stuffing. Humans then ship the dinners to two nonprofit groups to distribute to people in need.
Photo: AFP
The project, Picking with Purpose, is a partnership between artificial intelligence firm Berkshire Grey, the Greater Boston Food Bank and City Harvest in New York City, feeding some of the estimated 54 million people in the US struggling to afford food during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s like a double whammy,” Berkshire Grey president Steve Johnson said, citing the health risks and an increase in the people experiencing hunger.
“A lot of the people that help in food banks are typically retirees or volunteers in that age group,” he said.
Seniors are particularly vulnerable to the virus that has killed more than 250,000 in the US.
Berkshire Grey donated more than 18 tonnes of food for the Thanksgiving project. About 3,000 boxes, with four meals each, go to City Harvest and 1,000 boxes to the Boston Food Bank, feeding 16,000 people on the US holiday on Thursday next week.
Many had never needed food handouts before.
Before the pandemic, the Boston Food Bank, New England’s largest hunger-relief organization, was feeding about 300,000 in a city with a population of 710,000, according to WorldPopulationReview.com.
“Now these numbers are shy of 700,000 people” in and around Boston who need help, the organization’s chief operating officer Carol Tienken said. “This is the entire city of Boston that we’re having to feed right now because people can’t access food.”
In New York City, 2 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from, up from 1.5 million before COVID-19 gripped the city.
“We’re seeing a lot of new families, children, people that look like you and I, with the amount of people that are out of work,” City Harvest donor relations director Racine Droz said.
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