TORRINGTON — When Michael and Matthew Piechocki visited the FISH shelter last year, they were inspired to make it their own humanitarian mission.
The twin brothers and their mother, Helen Piechocki, delivered three van loads of food to FISH last week, collected by the entire student body of The Master’s School in West Simsbury. Both young men are seniors there, and made FISH their community service project.
Both also are Eagle Scouts, and made helping the shelter and food pantry their required project to earn their Eagle rank.
The Piechocki brothers are honor students and members of the National Honor Society. With the help of their classmates, the pair began collecting food donations for the shelter.
“Community service has always been sort of second nature to us, because of school and Boy Scouts,” Michael Piechocki said. “We’ve always done service projects, like putting flags on veterans graves at the cemetery, or doing something here in Torrington. It’s always very important to help the people in our town; it’s a good feeling.”
“It was just unbelievable, when the students showed up at FISH ... with three vans full of food,” said Deirdre DiCara, executive director of FISH. “There had to be more than 1,500 items. That’s a lot of food.
“The Piechockis are special friends of FISH,” DiCara said.
The Master’s School is a K-12 Christian day school with three divisions: lower, middle and upper school students. In the upper school, Helen Piechocki said, students are expected to dedicate themselves to community service. The National Honor Society chapter sponsors community service projects throughout the year.
“At the NHS meeting in October, my sons, who have such an affinity for FISH, brought their idea of a food drive to the society, and everyone thought it was a great idea,” Piechocki said. “What was nice about it was that it expanded from the honor society to a schoolwide activity, and every student got involved. The kids collected cash and (more than 1,500) individual food items, from Nov. 15 to Dec. 15. They filled an entire office on campus.”
When the time came to deliver the food, the group of students thought they could get it all into one school vehicle.
“There was so much food — we had a van, and we thought we’d just put it in there,” Piechocki said. “About a week before we went to FISH, the boys came to me and said, ‘Mom, there’s a ton of food.’ I thought, holy cow, there is. We ended up filling three vans.”
Bringing such a big delivery to the shelter made everyone feel very proud, Helen Piechocki said. “As you can imagine, the kids were so proud of themselves,” she said. “They placed plastic bins in all the buildings on campus with big signs, and every day they’d go from building to building and bring the donations to this empty office.”
“I was pretty impressed by how much we collected,” Michael Piechocki said.
Students also delivered 30 handmade fleece scarves and donated them to Joseph’s House, a mission on Water Street.
Master’s School student and honors society member Nicole Allen, who is also a senior, said she was glad to see everyone contribute to the food drive. She has attended Master’s since preschool and said she plans to study elementary education and perhaps Biblical theology in college. The success of the food drive, she said, was because the whole school joined in.
“We collected for a whole month,” she said. “It felt good to help FISH. At school, people understand how important it is to help people out. Everyone at school were willing to help, without even being asked.”
The Piechocki brothers are members of Boy Scout Troop 19 in New Hartford, and chose to use FISH as a project for their badges.
Michael Piechocki collected and assembled 100 first aid kids for families. “They made full-size family style kits,” according to Helen Piechocki. “They were so detailed, that he even included a digital thermometer. Who knew they’d be so handy now, with the pandemic.”
For his project, Matthew Piechocki assembled hospitality bags — 25 for men, 25 for women and 25 for children — with full-size personal care items. “The men’s bags had packages of razors, warm socks; for women, there were personal hygiene products, things like that,” Helen Piechocki said. “In the children’s bags, he put a new children’s book in each one, and a T-shirt that a child could wear as a pajama top if they needed it.”
Eagle Scout candidates are required to involve their fellow Boy Scouts in their project — the twins took it step further, and asked classmates to help out, too, she said. “They hosted multiple supply drives at the local Stop & Shop; they contributed their allowance to buy supplies. This is one of the things I’ve always appreciated about the Master’s School. There’s such an emphasis on service to the community.”
Troop 19 also has been a great inspiration for the Piechocki family.
“Their Boy Scout troop has phenomenal leaders,” Helen Piechocki said. “They’ve done food drives for FISH and the food pantry in New Hartford, so they’re used to doing this kind of thing. What I admire so much about Boy Scouts is, they don’t just run with the school calendar, they meet once a week all year long, and in the summer, the leaders take vacation time to go to camp with the kids. We’re very fortunate to have such wonderful troops in the area.”
The boys were inspired to help FISH after visiting a few years ago with their mother.
“I brought them there and Deirdre gave them a tour,” Piechocki said. “Michael is going to study pre-med in college next year, and he was struck by the fact that people are so food insecure that they can’t worry about having Band-Aids or a thermometer in the house,” she said. “That really bothered him.”
Matthew Piechocki met a family during his visit to FISH who were staying together in the shelter. “They were in a room not much bigger than our first floor bathroom,” Helen Piechocki said. “He was upset by that, and the fact that there were no personal items, no toys. ... So, when he met with Deirdre about his project, he asked if he could do those bags.”
When the vans were unloaded and placed outside in FISH’s driveway, the boys asked to help again.
“They piled everything up outside, and asked if it needed to go inside,” Piechocki said. “So they helped and brought it all in. It wasn’t a big deal to them, but it was to Deirdre and Margaret (Franzi), the pantry manager.”
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