About a 20-minute bus ride from the Tufts campus, Project SOUP, a food pantry run by the Somerville Homeless Coalition, distributes food to the members of the Somerville community who need it the most. Founded in 1969, Project SOUP relies on volunteers to make this work happen. Taylor MacHarrie started as the Volunteer Coordinator just a month ago, a vital position to keep Project SOUP’s services running.
MacHarrie applied for the job for numerous reasons.
“It [sounded] like work that’s meaningful, so I just decided to apply … because it seemed pretty my speed, just based on things that I’ve done before, and I’ve volunteered in a food pantry before, so it seemed like a good fit,” MacHarrie said. “It’s been pretty awesome so far, and I am happy to be still pretty local to where I live.”
MacHarrie grew up in Woburn, Mass., and graduated from the University of Vermont last May with degrees in natural resources and anthropology. After graduating, he didn’t feel motivated to pursue either field from his degree. Instead, he found inspiration from his extracurricular activities at UVM, specifically his on-campus job and time spent in student government.
“I was in my school’s student government where I was the chair of the committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” he said. "During that time, I got to interact with a lot of different diverse groups, a lot of marginalized groups … which is how I got interested in this particular work.”
MacHarrie was also the building manager for the Dudley H. Davis Center at UVM, a public space open during later hours of the evening.
“We got a lot of people … [who] were generally homeless people that were just looking for warmth and food … so I got to work with a pretty good amount of the homeless population in Burlington, Vermont, and that really influenced my thinking about homelessness in general,” MacHarrie said.
After college, MacHarrie began job hunting in the Woburn area, where he currently lives. Since he began last month, MacHarrie has spent every day of work at the food pantry on Broadway, which is next to the Chuckie Harris Park. MacHarrie enjoys interacting with people visiting or living in the park.
“Some of the guys there that reside in the park, I have just really nice interactions with them,” he said. “They help us with the work we do here. There’s one man that’s homeless that stays in the park a lot that helps us do truck unloading. We don’t ask him to, he just genuinely really likes helping us.”
MacHarrie also enjoys phone conversations with the program’s clients who are homebound, who often live alone and appreciate the social interaction.
“I’ve been on the phone for 20 minutes with some people just because they want someone to talk to,” he said. “It’s just nice to talk to them and get their thoughts on the world and just hear what they have to say and be a presence for them.”
To destress after work, MacHarrie makes an effort to read, hike and spend time outdoors, especially in Vermont.
“I do a lot of things for self care and relaxation,” MacHarrie said. "It’s sort of a necessary thing with this job to unwind a bit and turn your brain off for a little bit after work because some days are hard.”
MacHarrie said that some people he knows, including some he formerly worked with, have labeled homeless people as ‘dangerous.’ He thus made it a priority to truly get to know people experiencing homelessness.
“I interact with them on a daily basis, and they [are] just not dangerous people,” MacHarrie said. “They [are] just people going through rough time, and so I wanted to do more work to help that population, because really not a lot of people help them.”
