By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Back in 2017, six year old Eddie Thomson was out on a bike ride with his Dad, Sister and dog when they were tragically struck by a driver in the crosswalk. A couple days later, Eddie succumbed to his injuries and sadly passed away. In his memory, Eddie’s mother Jessica Thomson teamed up with local organizations in Westwood to create Eddie’s Food Drive in 2019.
A year before Eddie passed away, Jessica explained that he came home from school one day wondering about a topic his teacher had talked about in class: food insecurities. Upon having this profound and deep conversation with him, Eddie asked his mom if they could do something to help those people who needed food, especially within their area. Jessica and Eddie discussed ways in which they could do so, in which they decided that donating food to the local community was a big part of this plan.
When figuring out what food to donate, Jessica explained, “He [Eddie] said to me, ‘Well we need to make sure we get something healthy because everybody needs something healthy to eat,’ to which I told him he is absolutely right. And then he looked at me and he said, ‘But we also need to get them a treat because everybody deserves a treat.’ And that just stayed in my head, and for the first two years after he passed on his birthday, on my own accord, I would donate food to the food pantry to try to honor him.”
Jessica, being a member of the Westwood Young Women’s Club even before Eddie passed, was thrilled when they reached out in 2019 to create a food drive in his honor, since they knew how much this meant to him and his family. During Covid, they took monetary donations due to limited contact restrictions. For the past six years, this food drive has happened every spring, usually starting three weeks before April Break and ending on Eddie’s birthday on April 13th.
Today, Eddie’s Food Drive is in collaboration with Roche Brothers, Westwood Boy Scouts, Westwood Extended Day, Westwood Young Women’s Club, and Westwood Girl Scouts, which Eddie’s sister Fiona is a part of. This year, the food drive is collecting food from March 25th through April 13th, and drop off locations include Roche Brothers, Wentworth Hall, Coldwell Banker (lobby), Westwood Public Library, Westwood Public Schools, Westwood Extended Day Programs, Tobin School, Shalom Corner (Temple Beth David), and Westwood Children’s School. All donations are given to the Westwood Food Pantry.
“This food drive has just become something that we can do every year,” Jessica explained, “to honor Eddie’s memory and help the community in a way that one would not have expected a five/six year old boy to think about. He would even have kids donate food cans instead of receiving birthday gifts. It was just the kind of kid he was, and we are so happy we are able to do this in memory of him.”
For more information about Eddie’s Food Drive and what food items the Westwood Food Pantry is in need of, please visit www.eddiesfooddrive.com.
