Neighbor Brigade Co-Founder Pam Washek Loses Battle with Cancer

Pam Washek died Sunday, Dec. 2.

  A wife and mother and volunteering icon has died after a 10-year battle with cancer. Pam Washek, the co-founder of the Wayland Angel Food Network (now the Neighbor Brigade), passed away Dec. 2, according to an obituary published on Boston.com. Today, Woburn's chapter of Neighbor Brigade is just one of more than 30 in the state of Massachusetts. There is also a chapter operating in Nashua, N.H., the only non-Massachusetts chapter at this time. The Woburn chapter is operated by Jenna Jankowski and was formed in 2011. Washek and fellow Wayland resident Jean Seiden came together in the midst of their individual cancer treatments to found, in 2003, the Wayland Angel Food Network, a group dedicated to organizing neighbors to provide meals for …

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Jenna Jankowski is Looking for Volunteers for Neighbor Brigade

Jankowski moved from prospective volunteer to chapter organizer of a new program designed to help Woburn residents.

Perusing a paper for parents this past March, mom Jenna Jankowski came upon an ad for volunteers. “Why can’t I cook a meal for a neighbor?” she said she asked herself, adding Why can't I provide other help for a neighbor in the middle of a temporary crisis? No stranger to volunteering, Jankowski found the opportunity “perfect,” she said, because it requires no minimum number of hours, no long-term commitment. Only one problem:  there is no chapter of the Neighbor Brigade, which offers those services, here in Woburn—yet. Jankowski is working to start one to pair city residents who want to extend a hand to fellow residents who need some help temporarily. Residents in need may have a serious illness, or be recuperating from surgery, a sudden …

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Irene Simas

9:01 am on Sunday, May 8, 2011

Wonderful idea Jenna! This is how great things get started.   more ›