“No accolades for me.”

That’s the way Gemma Moran prefaced an interview at her home in Groton one day before her 99th birthday last month.

Yet Moran has been lauded around the region for the herculean effort of launching the region’s largest food pantry, now known as the Gemma Moran United Way Labor Food Center in New London, a distribution site that services 20,000 people locally every month.

Still, not many people know the back story of Moran, a feisty but good natured woman who grew up in Everett, Mass., and learned, as she said last month, from the “school of hard knocks.”

“She’s one of those people that just gets things done,” said Tony Joyce, president and chief executive of Chelsea Groton Bank. “Tough as nails.”

“She’s very passionate,” said Maggie Marley, community engagement labor liaison for the Southeastern Connecticut AFL-CIO. “She feels no one should go hungry.”

Moran was born the baby of 14 children to parents who emigrated from Italy. Her father eventually became a citizen, but her mom never learned to read or write. She lived in a poor section of the gritty city of Everett, Mass., where immigrants and African-Americans lived side by side.

“We were not poor, but we were not well off,” Moran recalled. “We never knew what is was to have elaborate meals.”

She was forced at a very early age, perhaps 11 or 12, to work at a plant that manufactured coke from coal. At one point, reports a friend, she developed severe frostbite on one of her hands, and almost lost it.

“I had a hard life. We pooled our pennies together,” Moran said.

She remembers getting some form of welfare in the midst of the Depression that descended in 1929 and lasted a decade, though perhaps it was only a bag of food here and there. Yet Moran always remembers being generous, regularly giving away food even as far back as first or second grade.

“The girl next door never had anything,” she said. “I used to give her my piece of bread. I always gave away whatever I had. That’s how I was, and I was bad off myself.”

She remembers being good at school, though never able to complete college because of her circumstances. So when it came time to find work, she gravitated toward paraprofessional social work, where she got her dander up hearing stories about families going hungry for days and weeks.

In the Massachusetts area, she developed the idea of forming a partnership between the United Way, which had a deep presence among the business community, and local labor unions, which she said often weren’t given enough credit for doing good works.

When Moran’s husband got a union job with Electric Boat and the family had to relocate in 1970, she moved to Groton and tried to replicate the same model here, using a $5,000 venture grant to buy a beat-up old barn on Thames Street, where she started giving away food. Labor unions eventually got wind of it, with the Metal Trades Council at EB becoming a leader in the movement.

“Every United Way in America had a labor rep; we did not,” she said, referring to the organization in southeastern Connecticut. “It was run by businessmen.”

Still, there was a controversy over how to handle union vs. nonunion labor, but eventually it was agreed to include both under the United Way umbrella, she said. Unions also were invited onto the United Way board of directors.

“I brought them together,” Moran said.

Moran also was integral to establishing one of the state’s largest food banks in New London. Previously, food was stored at a former Norwich State Hospital building.

“That’s where I started food donations,” Moran recalled. “Both casinos started to support me. ... The postal service and Teamsters sent trucks up to the casinos, loaded the food, then brought it back to the food bank.”

Local churches started to come on board, plus large grocery stores like Big Y and Stop & Shop. EB provided thousands of turkeys every year during the holidays.

The food bank went basically from nothing to distributing more than 2.15 million pounds of food last year. That represents 1.8 million meals annually.

“The food bank is the United Way and labor working together,” Moran said. “Regretfully, it’s named after me. It was all those who helped me. It had to be done.”

Donna Vendetto of New London, a good friend of Moran who regularly pops in to help her around the house, marvels at Moran’s memory and her self-effacement.

“She still cooks her own meals, lives by herself. It’s amazing.”

Moran never had children, but she has dozens of nieces and nephews, and she said the family is close.

“I was born to lead; I was born to give,” she said. “The key to giving is living; the key to living is giving.”

Moran also had a few brushes with fame. While working at the coke plant in Everett, Mass., she met John Fitzgerald Kennedy, future president of the United States, as he campaigned for statewide office. She also once met Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, in Washington, D.C., a person she truly admired.

Moran used to give talks for United Way, but her health has been shaky lately. Not long ago, she had a stroke and spent time in a nursing home, but she hated it there, especially the food, and her weight dropped to 98 pounds.

She was in the hospital last week, but as of Friday was back home and doing well, Vendetto reported.

As for being 99, Moran said “I feel every day is a blessing; I feel every day is a bonus.”

Her advice to others?

“Help those who need it. Don’t sit back and do nothing.... Do all the good you can and then forget about it.”

l.howard@theday.com