By Elena Perri • Posted June 4, 2024

Volunteering has been a constant part of Bob Farrington’s life.

He spent many years coaching youth baseball and soccer teams and was vice president of the Springfield Athletic Association in Delaware County. Farrington also served as president of the Home and School Association of St. Francis of Assisi School in Springfield and was a member of the parish council.

For the past 10 years Farrington has focused his volunteer efforts on a growing need in the Philadelphia area: helping people feed their families.

Through the Dennis Kelly Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Farrington has spearheaded the group’s Hibernian Hunger Project. He coordinates food drives at several archdiocesan elementary schools and high schools in Delaware and Chester counties. Each year the AOH distributes thousands of pounds of food to local non-profit organizations or churches.

The Hibernian Hunger Project is a nationwide program of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Farrington explained. He noted that the AOH’s hunger program was started in remembrance of the more than one million Irish people who died during the Great Famine in the 1840s. The AOH is America’s oldest Irish Catholic fraternal organization. It is dedicated to promoting Irish-American heritage and supporting local communities through charitable works.

“Doing something to help other people helps me sleep better at night, no matter how good or bad things are going in the world,” Farrington said. “It gives me a good feeling.”

In recognition of his dedicated service, Farrington recently received the Legion of Honor Humanitarian Award from the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation, which is based at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. The award is given to individuals who perform acts of selfless service in their local community.

In 2022, Farrington received the Man of the Year Award from the AOH.

“The Man of the Year Award was a total surprise,” he said. “I think it was the AOH Division’s way of thanking me for coordinating the Hunger Project.”

Growing up in St. Barnabas Parish in Southwest Philadelphia, Farrington graduated from St. Barnabas School and West Catholic High School.

Farrington’s father served as his inspiration for helping others.

“I learned a lot from my dad,” he said. “He was the chairman of our CYO, and he was totally respected by the pastor of our parish, even though he [my dad] wasn’t Catholic. He was involved in everything in our little community there, and I’ve always tried to be the same way.”

Farrington recalled his father telling him to, “be as kind as you can be to everybody.”

“What we do with the Hunger Project and what we do with the AOH gives me ample opportunity to be that way with people,” he added.

When Farrington took over the hunger project, five archdiocesan schools in Delaware County were collecting food. Ten years later, he has 13 Catholic grade schools and high schools involved in the annual food drive.

The Catholic grade schools collecting non-perishable food include Cardinal Foley and the St. Denis Prep Program in Havertown, SS. Colman-St. John Neumann in Bryn Mawr, St. Francis of Assisi in Springfield, St. Dorothy and St. Andrew in Drexel Hill, St. Pius in Broomall, St. Anastasia in Newtown Square, St. Katharine of Siena in Wayne, and SS. Simon and Jude in West Chester. The archdiocesan high schools are Cardinal O’Hara, Bonner & Prendie, Archbishop Carroll, and West Catholic.

The food drives are not a one-man operation. Farrington has fellow AOH members – John Cavanaugh, Andrew Colket, Mike Fitzpatrick, Ed Hand, Kevin Kane, and Tom and Kyle Meakim – who help with collecting food from the schools.

For the past three years most of the non-perishable food has been donated to Grands Stepping Up, a non-profit organization in Havertown that assists grandparents/kinship guardians who are raising their grandchildren due to situations when  parents are unable to be present in the lives of their children.

Food also has been given to Catholic Social Services in Chester, Temple Lutheran Church’s pantry in Havertown, and Holy Redeemer Food Pantry in Northeast Philadelphia.

A particularly memorable moment happened last year when Farrington went to pick up food from St. Katharine School. After a group of students filled his Jeep Cherokee with canned goods, Farrington was ready to leave when one of the students told him they also had collected eight bags of clothing.

“I had no idea they were doing that, so I had to take the canned goods to Grands Stepping Up and turn around and go back to get the bags of clothing,” Farrington said. “I told the students, ‘You can’t believe how much an organization like Grands was going to appreciate this donation.’ That just touched my heart.”

Farrington, who lived with his wife Lena in St. Francis of Assisi Parish for 40 years, moved to their shore home in Wildwood Crest on a full-time basis last August. They are now members of Notre Dame de la Mer Parish in Wildwood Crest.

Despite the much longer commute, Farrington, 71, has no plans to give up his AOH membership or his “pet project.”

“I take great pride in what we’ve done with the Hibernian Hunger Project, but also with what we do for so many people,” Farrington said. “We have a home heating oil project where every year we raise money and find a needy family to pay their home heating oil bill for the winter. The AOH division does various clothing drives, and we host a toy drive to help needy kids in Delaware County every year.”

Farrington is content to continue carrying out his father’s legacy of being kind to others.

“It’s a really good feeling knowing that when you go to a place like Grands Stepping Up, and there are people my age who can benefit from all the things we do, it just makes it so worthwhile,” Farrington said. “The bottom line is there’s nothing like knowing that you actually made a difference for somebody, and that’s my reward.”