February 15, 2025 • 43 mins
For more than 30 years, Our Neighbors' Table in Amesbury has been working in the Merrimack Valley to help people who are food insecure get access to the nourishment they need with dignity and grace. They've opened up two "free markets" so people can feed their families while still having a choice over what they bring home, but Our Neighbors' Table also offers community meals and home delivery services for those who need them. Lyndsey Haight, Executive Director of Our Neighbors' Table, talks with Nichole about their mission, the local food supply chain, how they foster community, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England
Weekend where each and every week right here we come
together we talk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live. It is so good
to be back with you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis.
We are focusing this time around on the Merrimack Valley,
specifically Amesbury and Salisbury. There's an organization working in those
(00:28):
communities making huge strides to fight food insecurity. And you know, yes,
if you're a longtime listener, we do talk about food
in security pretty frequently, but in doing so, we really
haven't focused much on that part of the area, the
Merrimack Valley and also the Sea coast of New Hampshire.
So when I learned about the work Our Neighbor's Table
is doing in that part of New England to restore
(00:49):
dignity and normalcy to people who need help putting food
on the table, you know I had to reach out
and here we are with Lindsey Hate. She is the
executive director at Our Neighbor's Table, has been for quite
some time, so we'll talk about that in just a moment. Lindsey,
thank you for your time. Thank you for being here,
let's start with a rundown of sorts about how long
our Neighbor's Table has been around and how this all
(01:11):
came together.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Our Neighbors Table has a history very similar to most
traditional food pantries. It was a group of local citizens
who saw that their neighbors were hungry and slowly and
they wanted to make a difference, and so they started
inviting them to dinner every Wednesday night. This was back
in May of nineteen ninety two, and from there it
(01:34):
just continued to grow right from the beginning, really growing
in response to what their guests were asking for. So
the first dinner in May on May fifth, nineteen ninety two,
had fifteen volunteers and eight people show up to dinner.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Wow. Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
And by September I like to say, you know, two
to one server to diner ratio, way more food than
anyone could possibly e in one sitting. Yea. And so
that's to set the customer service bar. And by September
of ninety two we had eighty people coming to dinner.
And today our Wednesday meal reaches both through dine in
(02:11):
and take out. It's like about four hundred people on
average a week and so and our organization as a whole.
From the dinner we also added, you know, at the start,
just bags, prepack bags of groceries, and that evolved into
a small food pantry, mostly still with non perishables and
(02:32):
a sprinkling of me dirgyes or milk. And in twenty
sixteen we really transformed the entire game and we opened
our first free grocery store and it was only the
second in the country. The first was in Santa Barbara.
And since we've opened that one in twenty sixteen in Amesbury,
(02:55):
I know some very well known country celebrities have open
something similar in concert with their local universities in Tennessee.
And we just actually opened our second free grocery store
last year in twenty twenty four here in Salisbury. And
so we have grown from serving eight people to serving
(03:18):
over sixty five hundred people across twelve cities in towns
who rely on free food from our neighbor's table. We
also help them apply for SNAP and they rely in
those services to make their monthly budget work. And now
beyond that, really our next phase here that we've entered
(03:39):
into is not just serving those people directly, but recognizing
that no one organization can create a food secure community.
And we have a very broad coalition called the Lower
Merrimack Valley Food Coalition, more than twenty five organizations that
are providing free groceries, free prepared meals and across seventeen
(04:01):
cities and towns of the Lower Merrimack Valley, So all
the way from the sea coast as far inland as
Lawrence and andover and north andover, and in those communities
there are thirty two thousand people who are food and
secure and so our goal is to ensure that it
doesn't matter what town you're living in. You know, we
talk a lot these days about the cost of living,
(04:22):
and so people are constantly moving to find a place
that they can afford and find where there's work. And
so why would food access be contained within arbitrary town borders.
And so we're really looking regionally to ensure that whether
you're you know, in Salisbury, or you're in Lawrence, or
you're in Mathuin, that you have access to the same
(04:46):
kind of equitable food and fresh, wholesome food, consistent reliable
access to nutritious food. That is the definition of food security.
So yeah, so now we're serving that entire cold with
their food supply, linking them to the Greater Boston Food Bank,
and also looking at community surplus, you know, food that's
(05:07):
manufactured surplus, food that's grown that otherwise would go into
a landfill, but it's perfectly good, beautiful food, and looking
for the ways to divert it into the food safety net. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
We talk on this show a lot about food insecurity,
and I know the stats here in Massachusetts as a
whole are practically staggering. One out of every three adults
in Massachusetts is food insecure. When it comes to families,
the situation is worse. Let's focus a little bit more
on your part of the state, though, tell me, because
you've got some up and coming cities like your Lawrence's
(05:38):
and your Lowells in the Merrimack Valley. Tell me a
little bit about what the situation is like in your
part of the state when it comes to food insecurity
and what's driving that.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, you know our immedia area, you know, think about
so the eastern part of this region, greater New Grayport.
Who would think we serve one out of eight residents
of Salisbury, We're serving one out of nine residents of Amesbury.
(06:07):
And even in the city of Newburyport, the schools have
thirteen percent of their students are low income. And those
are those are that's the real low you know, where
they're counting those families, Those are really low on the spectrum. Sure.
And so no matter any of these communities, and as
you you know, you talk about them, these some communities
(06:28):
as up and coming, ironic considering some of them were
the beginning of the economic boom, right and I grew
up along the Murmack Valley, along the Merrimack River, and
you know, Lowell and Lawrence, we're the beginning of the
economy here, and and to see them experiencing revitalization. But
there's a there's a fine line between revitalization and a
(06:53):
skyrocket getting cost of living that prices out the current
residence ration, so gentrification exactly. And so when you think
about the cost of living and versus the safety net,
the publicly funded safety net cuts off. If your family
of four makes over fifty five thousand dollars a year,
(07:16):
it costs by MIT's you know, MIT constantly tracks the
cost of living. It costs that same family at four
over one hundred and ten thousand dollars a year to
survive here survive, not no retirement savings, no vacation, just
to survive. So if you make more than fifty five
thousand dollars, you don't get any help from the state
or the federal government. Thanks to universal school meals in Massachusetts,
(07:39):
your kids get to eat at least two meals a
day without worry. But you've got another fifty five thousand
dollars yeap to cover.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And that's not small.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, I don't know how you do that. And so
while you do it, I know how people are doing it.
They find resources where they can get you know, subsidies
or free food. You know, you've got to pay your rent,
you've got to pay your utilities, and you can stop eating,
you know, And that's when people come to us. They
(08:08):
have you know, parents have stopped eating so that their
kids can eat three meals a day. And you know,
I say it all the time. By the time someone
comes in the door, they're at their darkest moment. But
sometimes it's actually when when one out of ten people
is coming, that's still only one out of ten. That
means nine out of ten are not And so the
(08:29):
STEMA actually makes it even more challenging. If you're in
a community where nine out of ten people are going
to this place to get their food. It's normal you
go there to get your food. But if you're the one,
you are afraid, you're you know, we demonize asking for help.
We're such a charitable society. We want to give, but
(08:51):
we don't want anybody to receive. It's kind of a
weird dynamic. And so so the gap, the affordability gap,
is huge. I like to actually quote a report from
the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission that came out Nicole in
twenty seventeen, okay, before the pandemic. This is an eight
(09:12):
year old report, and they were looking at affordability of
the Merrimack Valley. And in that report, there's a tiny
little caption under a graph pick or something. There's a
tiny little caption that says, in twenty seventeen, there was
not a single, not a single rental unit in the
Merrimack Valley that was lowercase a affordable based on the
(09:37):
median income of a rental household.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
That was twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Twenty seventeen, because very certainly applus today seventeen, and it
has not gotten any better. I was sitting with one
of our elected officials on last Friday, and he said,
help me understand. And we have a great delegation who
is engaged and they want to understand. They want to
hear this, and they want to port the food Safety Net.
(10:02):
And so I was sitting with Senator tar I reached
out to him as we're beginning the budget process and
understanding their priorities and their concerns, and he said, help
me understand how the trend has gone. And so I
drew for him on on my whiteboard. I said, well, okay,
let's we started counting back in twenty ten. I came
(10:26):
to this organization in twenty ten. We started counting food
and secure individuals feeding America and the Greater Boston Food
Bank started putting out consistent data in like twenty thirteen.
I said, so we knew from two thousand and eight
to the recession in two thousand and eight really rippled
into our community. If you look at unemployment, it really
(10:46):
rippled into our region. In twenty ten, and we watch
food and security rates continue to climb from twenty ten
until through twenty sixteen. It wasn't until twenty eighteen we
saw them dip just a tiny bit just a tiny bit,
but still well above any year prior to that. So
(11:10):
it just continued to climb. It dipped a tiny bit
in twenty eighteen, and then twenty twenty hit and it skyrocketed. It.
It nearly doubled a seventy five percent increase in food
and security in our region, just in our immediate region,
and it fell down a little bit about thirty percent
coming into twenty twenty two, twenty twenty one. But my
(11:32):
prediction based on history was that from twenty twenty, we're
just going to continue to see it climbed. So we
had that drop, that thirty percent drop from ten thousand
to seven thousand, but we were already in twenty fourteen
it was like four thousand.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And so we dipped down to seventy five hundred, and
then we just keep climbing. We are serving just our
neighbor's table alone. We are serving thirty one percent more
people in twenty twenty four, I mean going into twenty
five than we were in twenty twenty when unemployment was
eighteen percent in our meeting region. Wow. So these are
(12:11):
working people, these are retired people. You know, it's closing
the gap.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, And you bring up a great point in that
these are people who are trying to put food on
the table. And you mentioned stigma a few minutes ago,
and we've talked about this on the show as well,
how people don't want to be hungry, they don't want
their kids to be hungry. There is that stigma of
oh you're lazy, or oh you're a welfare queen, or
oh you're just living off the safety net. You talk
(12:41):
to anybody who is food insecure, I highly doubt you're
going to find somebody that says, yeah, I love being
food insecure. It's totally how I want to be. It's
just not that way.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, no, it's not at all. And you know, one
of the really wonderful things that when I join this
organization fifteen years ago that I so appreciated was there
was no us in them. It was just neighbors helping neighbors.
They were people who rolled up their sleeves and were
willing to walk the walk. There's a lot of talk,
(13:13):
there's a lot of lip service, but when it gets
down to brass tacks, you know, one, cooking and moving
food around is not an easy chore. And to create
that community where people really feel listened to, they feel welcomed.
We exist for no other reason than to put to
give food away. So why on earth would I make
(13:35):
it difficult for someone to come through my door? I mean,
just like any business, right, our purpose is to deliver
this product and service. And how what good am I
if I don't get anybody to come through the door.
And so our number one testimonial or a number one
source of referral is existing guests. Even when we designed
(13:56):
the free grocery store, people always ask well, how did
you come up with this idea? Well, I asked the
people that were coming to get food what kind of
experience we had. In twenty fifteen, we were gifted a
property we knew we had to renovate it. I said, well,
what kind of experience do you want to have when
you come here? Because of the time, we had a
small food pantry in the back of a church, And
(14:17):
so what kind of experience do you want to have
and what kind of food do you need most? And
they said, you know, we just want to be able
to come in and shop. We want to be able
to get the food that we need. You know, parents
were saying, I want to make sure that I'm getting
food that I know my kids are going to eat. Right.
Seniors are saying, you know, well, I don't give me
a prepack bag because half the stuff I don't I
(14:38):
can't eat, I won't eat. I'm just a single person.
We want to be able to just come in. We
just want to feel normal. We just want to be
able to feel like we're just going to your typical
grocery store. And so that's what we built. And then
when we ask them what they need most from us,
you know, every year, space and money are limited. What
do we need to make sure we have on the shelf.
(15:00):
We've been asking that question going back to twenty eleven,
and it's fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, you know,
good proteins, dairy things that we all know are critical
pieces of a healthy diet. But they are the most
expensive per calorie in the grocery store and happened for
decades and there's no sign of that changing. And so
(15:23):
you know, we made sure so our markets are you know,
have all the refrigeration they need. We have refrigerated storage,
we have you know, warehouses that support each of our
grocery stores. Because whether you're shopping when we open on Monday,
or you're shopping when we're closing on Saturday. You need
to know. I don't want to create that panic. So
(15:43):
everybody shows up on the one day they think the
truck is coming in. I don't know if it comes
in and out all week, just like your typical grocery store.
Because whether you can get here on Monday or you
can get here on Saturday, you need to know that
this is reliable for you and your family. And you know,
families report that save fifty to one hundred dollars a
week in food costs by shopping with us. That's two
(16:07):
to four hundred dollars a month that we're putting back
in their pockets so that they can pay rent, they
can pay their utilities. You know one story that one
woman that came to us for the first time. She said,
I tried many times to come. I'd come, I'd leave
empty handed because I was afraid to come in. And
then one week I had five bucks and I either
put that money in my gas tank so I could
(16:28):
get to work, or I went through the drive through
to get something for my kids for dinner. And she
had she had to come, and so you know, to
put four hundred dollars in back in her pocket every
single month.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Huge, huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
And it let her. You know, she walked out of
here with her head held high, and she talked to
other people who are going through this and realized she
wasn't alone. And she's an ambassador. She talks to people.
She works for a domestic violence organization. Now you know,
she continues to pay it forward. She's raised two beautiful
(17:04):
children who one has gone on to a trade, one
has gone on to college, and now they are productive
members of society.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I wanted to kind of move on to something you
brought up in that you're in this network of food
pantries and places like yours around the Merrimack Valley. It's
kind of like a food hub of sorts. Tell me
about how you get your products. I know there's the
Seacoast Regional Food Hub. You've got the Merrimack Valley Food Hub.
You were talking about, how do you fill up the market?
(17:33):
How does it all happen behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, there's there's a lot going on, and so so
just to clarify, we have the Seacoast Regional Food Hub.
That's the that's our one hub, and we serve we
serve the lower Merrimack Valley, so basically everything from and
over out to the out to the ocean and as
far south as Rowley, Wow and and Boxford. So we
(17:59):
you know, for our neighbor's table, two thirds of our
food comes from the Greater Boston Food Bank, and for
a number of our partners, one hundred percent of their
food comes from the Greater Boston Food Bank, or you know,
over ninety percent. And then other members are not members
of a food bank. Some are members of the Merrimac
(18:20):
Valley Food Bank in Lowell. So that's I wanted to
just make that distinction. Yeah, and others are just piecing
food donations or they're going out and buying whatever food
that they're cooking and giving out. And so we really
have a very piecemeal food supply. I don't think you know,
(18:41):
when you think about your grocery stores. None of us
ever thought about food supply until COVID, right, and all
of a sudden, our grocery stores were bare, and we
didn't understand why can we not get toilet paper? I
never but we all learned more than we ever wanted
to know about supply chain. But that's important to understand
where the things that you can soon come from. And
(19:05):
and for the food safety net, we have a very
peacemeal food supply. And so for those of us who
belong to a food bank, and the Greater Boston Food
Bank does a stellar job, and they use state funding
they use they receive food that's funded through a federal
(19:27):
line item under the US Department of Agriculture under the
Farmville UH and then they get private funding, their own
private funding that they use and they work with the
other food banks across the Commonwealth UH to do collective
buying so that they get better better pricing. And they
actually was really wonderful about our food banks here in
(19:49):
Massachusetts is that they survey us as their customers and
ask what are your customers demanding, like what are what's
what's high and demand, what's high need, and they use
their collective power to then go out and procure and
purchase that food supply. So for those of us who
are lucky enough to block to a food bank, we
(20:09):
have a somewhat consistent supply of those particular products. Those
are you know, a lot of a lot of the
shelf stable things, canned vegetables, canned fruits, beans, pasta, rice, cereals,
some juices, boxed milk, and then they do go out
(20:29):
to get produce. Actually, as one of the strategic partners
at the Great of Boston Food Bank, over the last
twelve years, we've really worked with them to increase the
percentage of fresh fruits and vegetables that they're distributing, and
also meat and fish and dairy, and so we have
(20:50):
that that's somewhat consistent. But the reality is is that
you know, just the one Grid of Boston Food Bank
alone has over six hundred members up and down eastern Massachusetts,
and we're all seeing that thirty percent increase over the
last three years. There's no one food supply that can
keep up with that, and so we have a little
bit of somebody once compared it a little bit of
(21:11):
a game of hungry hippos, like, oh get did I
get that? Did I get that palette of product before
my people down on the South Shore got it? So
it's a little bit of hungry hippos. No one food
supply source can meet any need right now, business works
on one supplier, and so our neighbor's table. Since we
(21:31):
open our last facility in twenty sixteen, we developed the
capacity to be able to go out locally to local farms,
local retailers, local food manufacturers who have that surplus. It's
not garbage, it's not expiring product. It's surplus product. And
(21:52):
we've been moving about two hundred to three hundred thousand
pounds a year out of that surplus line into food
and secure house. Wow, most of our part. But we
could do that because we had a truck and then
we got to a second truck, We had a warehouse,
we had some refrigeration. When we opened that new facility,
we surveyed our folks in the in the COVID peak
(22:14):
in twenty twenty, when money was flowing to invest in infrastructure,
we said, hey, what does everybody need. We can write
a grant for the group. And people were like, well,
we can't keep up with the food supply, but we
don't have refrigeration, we don't have trucks, we don't have storage.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Or we can't get it places.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
We put in a grand We got some funding to
put some things in place piecemeal, you know, temporarily, to
get them through the crisis. We said we need a
long term solution, and so the Sea Coast Regional Food
Hub it's based in Salts Very on Rootline. It's easily accessible.
So the Greater we have what's called a cross stop,
So the Greater Boston Food Bank actually brings food up
(22:51):
here to its member agencies rather than all of us
having to go down to their Boston warehouse.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And that's not a fun drive.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, six members, and we've actually so we've got seventeen
members in this region. Twelve of them are now using
the cross stock. And these are you know, anyone who's
up in the Merrimack Valley, they know if they might
know us. Our neighbor's Table, Sacred Heart Saint Vincent de
Paul is the largest free grocery provider serving haverl neighbors
(23:22):
in need Lazarus House in core Unham are some of
the big players serving and working to meet the need
in the Greater Lawrence area. So all these agencies are
participating in the cross stock. The implication for this food
supply ripples across eastern Massachusetts because now we've moved three
(23:43):
hundred and forty five dock appointments out of Boston to
up here to the North Shore, and so there's three
hundred and forty five appointments available now to the rest
of the membership that they can go and access it
in Boston, so it has a rippling effect across all
of eastern Massachusetts. It's really it's in our hole locally,
(24:04):
is that all of our partners, all of our coalition
members will be able to then provide this free grocery
store model. So it's just in reliable and equitable access
to food. But we need to have more diverse food supply,
We need to have a better distribution plan, so really
transforming the whole safety net from the guest experience, the
(24:28):
person who's coming and shopping all the way through to
the just general distribution. So I'm really excited about that,
and all of it is driven to coal by our
desire to replicate success that we had. In twenty eighteen,
we declared the City of Amesbury food Secure. Wow. Food
is universally available to everyone who lives in Amesbury, whether
(24:52):
they can afford to buy it or not, whether they're
five or ninety five, whether they're sick they're healthy. We
put that stick in the ground. We achieved that milestone
in twenty eighteen in the City of Amesbury. It was
tested by a global pandemic. Never would have asked for
that kind of test, but sure proud be able to
(25:13):
say to report out in July of twenty twenty, when
unemployment in ames Ferry was seventeen and a half percent,
and that's primarily affecting working families. The school district again
a sign of a food secure city because it's cross sector,
it's seamless, it's universal that touches every resident in every context,
(25:35):
the school districts are a critical partner. The school district
was putting out a survey to try to figure out
what fall of twenty twenty was going to look like.
And in that survey they included questions similar to the
Hunger Vital Signs to find out whether or not families
are worrying about or going without food at that time.
At that time reports across the Commonwealth, across the country
(25:56):
put family food and security rates at fifteen to twenty
percent or higher. Again, unemployment was seventeen and a half
percent in Eamesbury. You were then six percent of families
said that they were even worried about food. Wow, And
because they did that survey, we actually could pinpoint in particular,
(26:17):
for whatever reasons, it was our middle school families. And
he said Okay, well, now we know we've got to
reach out to them. We got to target and make
sure that the programs are accessible to them. And so
you know, I never want to ask for another global
crisis to test our resilience. But we have built a
model to build community level food security and also to
(26:42):
measure it. And then only when you have a food
secure community can you expect households to feel food secure. Sure,
because if there's not universal food access, if today kids,
you know, families and kids are getting the food, but
next year maybe we're going to just focus on seniors,
then it's like, you know, as Bill Addage, we're robbing
(27:04):
from Peter to pay Paul. Or you know who I
eat today, you eat tomorrow. That's not food security. So
when you have universal food access in the community that
touches all ages, all demographics, there is no stigma. The
community is engaged in investing over the long term. We
were meeting the need starting in twenty fifteen. We did
(27:27):
not declare food secure of food secure city until twenty
eighteen because we saw that it was sustainable, it was
being sustained and so we're actually pretty close here in Salisbury.
We're pretty close our investments. We went from serving eighty
percent of the need in twenty twenty to one hundred
and thirty seven percent of the need in twenty twenty four.
(27:48):
You've need store here at O and T. We opened
a market at the Senior Center. We bolstered the food
supply for another food pantry partner and putting it out
on main Street, making it making it socially acceptable to
get the help that you need when you need it.
And so so that's our drive, that's our driving motivation
(28:10):
to do this, because we've seen it happen, we know
it's possible. Food and security is not a natural disaster. No,
it's a man made problem, a human it's a human
made problem.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
There's plenty of food out there, especially here in the
United States of America. I think about that all the time.
How we have these giant supermarkets. You know, I'll be
walking through Market Basket or Weagmans or whatever. I'm like,
there is so much food, and I hate thinking about
what happens to it when it's close to going bad.
And you hear these stories about all these dumpsters being
(28:42):
filled with all this food that's perfectly usable. And I'm
so grateful that a lot of that food is going
to the people who need it through programs like yours.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
A third of the food produced in this country goes
into a landfill every year, which.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Is just sacrilegious to me because people are in need clearly.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And it's not you know, it's not a malicious thing.
You know, I think when I talk to people about
why is there so much food waste? Well, you know,
even like think about a farmer, Well, a farmer has
you know, I'm not a farmer, so I'm going to
speak that doesn't make sense. But you know, you have
an acre of land, and on that land you can
(29:19):
you can you can grow one hundred broccoli plants for
the same price or as as growing you know, a
thousand when you're going to grow the thousand, and you
hope that you're going to find consumers for that, yeah,
and you may not. And it's just like in food manufacturing.
If you can produce a million boxes of cereal for
(29:41):
the same price as seven hundred and fifty thousand boxes,
produce the million for the same price, and you might
find a paying customer to close that gap, or you
might not. And the federal government, the Federal line item,
it's called t fat te FAP, the Emergency Buddhistance Program.
It's part of the farm bell and that money goes
(30:03):
if there's a surplus, the government buys that product and
it has to go. Part of the policy is that
has to go to the food bank network, and so
it goes to the food banks and then the food
banks distribute it to local community programs like ours. So
that's something we really need to protect. But you know
(30:24):
all of this. We talk about the food supply, and
we talk about these grocery stores, and you talked about
the impact of food security, right like kids, people go
to work and kids go to school, and when we
invest in government programs school meals, for example, when school
(30:47):
we were tracking with the city of newbury Port, we
got funding in twenty nineteen from United Way to train
teachers and school administrators on food and security, replicating something
we did in the healthcare. Health care sector, there's a
power dynamic. We talked about stigma. Parents don't want to
tell their teachers that they can't feed their kids, right
(31:08):
They're afraid they're going to report them for neglect or
all these other things. Rightfully, you know that fear is legitimate.
So we worked we trained teachers to talk to on
how to work with families around that power dynamic, just
the prevalence of food and security in their schools. And
we started tracking how many nutrition related visits there were.
(31:32):
So kids going to the nurse's visit the nurse's office
saying they're hungry. Now there's a whole bunch of reasons,
you know, uh, you know, Lindsay didn't study for test,
or she just didn't get a good night's sleep or whatever.
But we started tracking nutrition related visits and when they
instituted universal school meals during the pandemic, the number so
(31:55):
they tracked the number of kids getting taking the lunch
at school, which was really high, particularly because we couldn't
get food at the grocery store to mix sandwiches for
our kid. Right, And we saw almost by fifty percent
the drop in nurse visits. Now this is during a
health pandemic nurse visits, but this is specifically nutrition related visits.
(32:20):
We saw that drop. What does that mean? Will you
figure every visit it's about fifteen minutes out of the classroom. Yeah,
so we just put back fifty percent of that out
of classroom time. Right, So that's the kind of implication.
We have data that shows that the most effective program
(32:40):
in ending, decreasing, ending childhood hunger is SNAPPED Supplemental Program
otherwise known as food the debit card. People get monthly
allowance to be able to go to a food retailer
and buy retail food. They can't buy alcohol, well, they
can't buy tobacco, they can't buy shampoo, they can't even
(33:03):
buy diapers or feminine hygiene products, and they can't they
can't even buy prepared food, although we're working to create
legislation in the in the Commonwealth that allows more people
to be able to use it, because if you're homeless,
you know, you need to be able to buy prepared foods.
And why shouldn't you be able to buy a rotisserie chickens.
(33:25):
I was just gonna say, family, it's like, you can't
buy a rotissary chicken. And so the data forever shows
that SNAP is the most effective way because it puts
money in their pockets to be able to go and
use for food. We have the SNAP gap right, and
we've been closing on closing in on this where the
(33:46):
SNAP gap is those who are eligible who aren't using
the program, and it's like anywhere from a third to
half of the people who are eligible are not using
the program. And we've seen those numbers in our communities,
and again it's stigma. It's the complexity of applying. And
so we have been working. We actually process and a
few of our partners process applications right here in our community,
(34:08):
so you don't have to track all the way to
a state office, you know, which is like a half
hour each way, and.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Because if you're a working mom, you don't have time
for that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
You don't have time for that, and you may or
may not actually have a set appointment time, and so
it's first come, first serve, and so it's an all
day affair. And if you have transportation, because in our
neck of the woods there isn't trans there. You know,
we have a growing MEVA transportation system, but it doesn't
cover the entire territory. And so last year our Neighbor's
(34:39):
Table we processed applications for I forget the number of families,
but we put four hundred and thirty three thousand dollars
in new money, annualized money into people's pockets that they'd
have in twenty twenty five to spend. Wow, it is
not only feeding those households, it's feeding the local economy.
(35:02):
It's supporting jobs, it's supporting farms, it's supporting retailers. I
don't know why food retailers and farmers are not screaming
at the top of their lungs. The latest you know this,
going back to twenty twenty two, USDA said in Massachusetts,
more than one hundred and sixty million dollars a month
(35:25):
in Snap dollars was going into the local food economy.
That's not that's not me like if you don't want
to spend Snap, if you don't want to have Snap dollars,
that means everyone's relying on free food from organizations like
our neighbor's table. That's that's a significant It's the average
person eats a thousand meals a year, and the average
(35:45):
food cost per meal is over four dollars a meal
if you go to a retailer and buy it, not
not like going out to eat. So four point fifty
times one thousand, forty five hundred dollars per person, So
around that to just say four thousand for easy, we
served over six thousand people last year, so six thousand
(36:08):
times four thousand, twenty four million dollars a year venture
to feed those people plus the you know, plus the
operations here. That's just the food cost plus our operations,
right So, and that's just six thousand people out of
the you know, one out of three households in the
Commonwealth that our food.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Scure and on Beacon Hill. You know, do you feel
any pushback to that? I mean, obviously, federally, there are
a lot of changes going on right now that could
potentially impact your operations. But locally, do you still see
support for the work you're doing and promoting getting more
people on SNAP?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Absolutely? I think, particularly when it comes to SNAP. The
Commonwealth actually has expanded criteria eligibility. There used to be
a thing called categorical eligibility eligibility at the federal level.
So if you were if you were eligible for any
kind of Medicaid or Medicare or other types of financial assistance,
(37:05):
and you automatically were deemed eligible for a SNAP, that
was diminished and you know, it's a ping pong game.
But so there's expanded eligibility. We actually allow people up
to two hundred percent of the poverty level here in Massachusetts.
So when I use that reference point of fifty five
thousand dollars for a family of four if you didn't
(37:28):
live in the Commonwealth, if you lived in one of
our neighboring states, it's way lower. It's like of the
of the poverty level, and so your benefits to eligibility
would cut off in the forties. And you know, southern
New Hampshire is not much cheaper than mass Chusetts if
(37:51):
at all, and so uh, you know, the Commonwealth has
made efforts there. We also they also these contracts so
that we can be outposts helping the state offices reach
people who otherwise maybe would not be enrolling. So so
(38:11):
there are different things in our hip program, you know.
So that's that it allows basically gives people on snap
double the buying power if they're buying produce and from
farms or from other partner retailers. So looking for different
(38:33):
ways to leverage and give them more money and engage
more commercial partners. There's still a lot of room to
like just get out the bugs and figure that out.
You know. The key is whether or not we're funding
those programs at the level of that corresponds to the need.
So making sure that we're doing more to fund hip.
(38:56):
You know, based on utilization, we need to get more
farmers and retailers on board for that. It's not accessible
across the commonwealth, and you got to invest in that infrastructure.
And then others outside of snap. You know, continuing to
fund universal school meals is critical and that seems to
(39:18):
be a commitment of the legislature and the governor this year.
So we need to make sure that we safeguard that
me fat I mentioned the federal t FAT program, but
we have our own line item in the state budget
called the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistant Program. That's funding right
to the food banks and they use that money to
(39:40):
go out and buy the product that we get consistently.
That has not kept pace with the need at all,
it's lagging way behind. We need that funding to actually
be about fifty five million dollars this year to even
come close to meeting the demand. Those six hundred agencies
just from Greater Boston Food Bank alone, and you've got
three more food banks across the commonwealth. So being able
(40:03):
to secure that funding and I think that there's an epithet.
I told you I met with one of our our
senators last Friday. The delegates have been out to the
food Hub. They're engaging with their partners and it's on
us to continue to engage them because there are so
many challenges facing residents of the Commonwealth right now, and
so you know, we're all competing, we're all competing for
(40:25):
the same resources. But you know this is we could
spend wisely and invest in shared infrastructure that really helps
just you know, divert there's in twenty twenty two there
is a food waste van. So you can't dispose of
more than a ton a half ton a week of
food waste. Let's move into the safety net.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, it's a bipartis an issue too. You mentioned you
were talking with Bruce Tarr. He's the minority leader over
on Beacon Hills. So I mean this is an issue
that impacts people of both parties. That's right, Yeah, it
benefits all of us. How can people contribute to you
with their time, their energy? How can they help you
build out more of your grocery stores. How can they
(41:08):
make your mission a little bit easier for you to
carry out?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Absolutely, so they can. We still very much are We
have a small staff of about twenty employees and we
have six hundred and fifty volunteers.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
We really are boots on the ground operation. So we
are always always welcoming new volunteers. So our Neighbors Table
dot orgy it's a great resource to go whether you
want to help or you need help. Both links are
right on that page. And you know, for every dollar,
you know, every dollar contributed, our Neighbor's Table puts a
(41:43):
meal on the table.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
And so financial contributions are critical and right now, in
particular local private individuals, we're relying on them more than
ever because of the uncertainty at the state and federal level.
And so we are finishing our capital campaign and our
capital project for the Seacoast Regional Food Hub. We really
(42:08):
want to be able to expand that commercial surplus program
in twenty five, but we can't do that until we
finish this campaign, which will wrap up at the end
of March. We' sive one point eight million dollars left
to raise, and so you can go to you can
go to the main website, our Neighbors Table dot org,
or you can just go to fill them up dot org.
F I L L E M up. Fill them up
(42:30):
dot org Okay, and make a contribution, whether it's a
one time, a monthly, or a three year pledge. If
you have the capacity to invest more in the shared infrastructure,
then then we still we still need your help, and
we have lots of great sponsor and serve programs where
you can bring your team. It's great team building. I
(42:51):
like to call volunteering here a free gym membership, right,
And so you know, like I mean, we pick things
up and put things down all day long, and we yeah, yeah,
I won't stale anybody else's marketing, but we yeah, we
accept everybody. We are welcoming to everybody here, and we
don't charge you. So we need people to come in.
(43:14):
And if you're a food manufacturer and you've got surplus,
go to our website our neighbors Table dot org, email
me or any of our team members and we'd love
to get you, you know, partnered up with our hub.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Lindsey. This has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you for
all the info, Thank you for laying this out for
us so succinctly, and thank you for the work you're
doing in that part of the state. We really need
people like you and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Well. Thank you so much, Nicole. It's been a real pleasure,
and you know I appreciate your audience.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England
Weekend where each and every week right here we come
together we talk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live. It is so good
to be back with you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis.
We are focusing this time around on the Merrimack Valley,
specifically Amesbury and Salisbury. There's an organization working in those
(00:28):
communities making huge strides to fight food insecurity. And you know, yes,
if you're a longtime listener, we do talk about food
in security pretty frequently, but in doing so, we really
haven't focused much on that part of the area, the
Merrimack Valley and also the Sea coast of New Hampshire.
So when I learned about the work Our Neighbor's Table
is doing in that part of New England to restore
(00:49):
dignity and normalcy to people who need help putting food
on the table, you know I had to reach out
and here we are with Lindsey Hate. She is the
executive director at Our Neighbor's Table, has been for quite
some time, so we'll talk about that in just a moment. Lindsey,
thank you for your time. Thank you for being here,
let's start with a rundown of sorts about how long
our Neighbor's Table has been around and how this all
(01:11):
came together.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Our Neighbors Table has a history very similar to most
traditional food pantries. It was a group of local citizens
who saw that their neighbors were hungry and slowly and
they wanted to make a difference, and so they started
inviting them to dinner every Wednesday night. This was back
in May of nineteen ninety two, and from there it
(01:34):
just continued to grow right from the beginning, really growing
in response to what their guests were asking for. So
the first dinner in May on May fifth, nineteen ninety two,
had fifteen volunteers and eight people show up to dinner.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Wow. Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
And by September I like to say, you know, two
to one server to diner ratio, way more food than
anyone could possibly e in one sitting. Yea. And so
that's to set the customer service bar. And by September
of ninety two we had eighty people coming to dinner.
And today our Wednesday meal reaches both through dine in
(02:11):
and take out. It's like about four hundred people on
average a week and so and our organization as a whole.
From the dinner we also added, you know, at the start,
just bags, prepack bags of groceries, and that evolved into
a small food pantry, mostly still with non perishables and
(02:32):
a sprinkling of me dirgyes or milk. And in twenty
sixteen we really transformed the entire game and we opened
our first free grocery store and it was only the
second in the country. The first was in Santa Barbara.
And since we've opened that one in twenty sixteen in Amesbury,
(02:55):
I know some very well known country celebrities have open
something similar in concert with their local universities in Tennessee.
And we just actually opened our second free grocery store
last year in twenty twenty four here in Salisbury. And
so we have grown from serving eight people to serving
(03:18):
over sixty five hundred people across twelve cities in towns
who rely on free food from our neighbor's table. We
also help them apply for SNAP and they rely in
those services to make their monthly budget work. And now
beyond that, really our next phase here that we've entered
(03:39):
into is not just serving those people directly, but recognizing
that no one organization can create a food secure community.
And we have a very broad coalition called the Lower
Merrimack Valley Food Coalition, more than twenty five organizations that
are providing free groceries, free prepared meals and across seventeen
(04:01):
cities and towns of the Lower Merrimack Valley, So all
the way from the sea coast as far inland as
Lawrence and andover and north andover, and in those communities
there are thirty two thousand people who are food and
secure and so our goal is to ensure that it
doesn't matter what town you're living in. You know, we
talk a lot these days about the cost of living,
(04:22):
and so people are constantly moving to find a place
that they can afford and find where there's work. And
so why would food access be contained within arbitrary town borders.
And so we're really looking regionally to ensure that whether
you're you know, in Salisbury, or you're in Lawrence, or
you're in Mathuin, that you have access to the same
(04:46):
kind of equitable food and fresh, wholesome food, consistent reliable
access to nutritious food. That is the definition of food security.
So yeah, so now we're serving that entire cold with
their food supply, linking them to the Greater Boston Food Bank,
and also looking at community surplus, you know, food that's
(05:07):
manufactured surplus, food that's grown that otherwise would go into
a landfill, but it's perfectly good, beautiful food, and looking
for the ways to divert it into the food safety net. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
We talk on this show a lot about food insecurity,
and I know the stats here in Massachusetts as a
whole are practically staggering. One out of every three adults
in Massachusetts is food insecure. When it comes to families,
the situation is worse. Let's focus a little bit more
on your part of the state, though, tell me, because
you've got some up and coming cities like your Lawrence's
(05:38):
and your Lowells in the Merrimack Valley. Tell me a
little bit about what the situation is like in your
part of the state when it comes to food insecurity
and what's driving that.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, you know our immedia area, you know, think about
so the eastern part of this region, greater New Grayport.
Who would think we serve one out of eight residents
of Salisbury, We're serving one out of nine residents of Amesbury.
(06:07):
And even in the city of Newburyport, the schools have
thirteen percent of their students are low income. And those
are those are that's the real low you know, where
they're counting those families, Those are really low on the spectrum. Sure.
And so no matter any of these communities, and as
you you know, you talk about them, these some communities
(06:28):
as up and coming, ironic considering some of them were
the beginning of the economic boom, right and I grew
up along the Murmack Valley, along the Merrimack River, and
you know, Lowell and Lawrence, we're the beginning of the
economy here, and and to see them experiencing revitalization. But
there's a there's a fine line between revitalization and a
(06:53):
skyrocket getting cost of living that prices out the current
residence ration, so gentrification exactly. And so when you think
about the cost of living and versus the safety net,
the publicly funded safety net cuts off. If your family
of four makes over fifty five thousand dollars a year,
(07:16):
it costs by MIT's you know, MIT constantly tracks the
cost of living. It costs that same family at four
over one hundred and ten thousand dollars a year to
survive here survive, not no retirement savings, no vacation, just
to survive. So if you make more than fifty five
thousand dollars, you don't get any help from the state
or the federal government. Thanks to universal school meals in Massachusetts,
(07:39):
your kids get to eat at least two meals a
day without worry. But you've got another fifty five thousand
dollars yeap to cover.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And that's not small.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, I don't know how you do that. And so
while you do it, I know how people are doing it.
They find resources where they can get you know, subsidies
or free food. You know, you've got to pay your rent,
you've got to pay your utilities, and you can stop eating,
you know, And that's when people come to us. They
(08:08):
have you know, parents have stopped eating so that their
kids can eat three meals a day. And you know,
I say it all the time. By the time someone
comes in the door, they're at their darkest moment. But
sometimes it's actually when when one out of ten people
is coming, that's still only one out of ten. That
means nine out of ten are not And so the
(08:29):
STEMA actually makes it even more challenging. If you're in
a community where nine out of ten people are going
to this place to get their food. It's normal you
go there to get your food. But if you're the one,
you are afraid, you're you know, we demonize asking for help.
We're such a charitable society. We want to give, but
(08:51):
we don't want anybody to receive. It's kind of a
weird dynamic. And so so the gap, the affordability gap,
is huge. I like to actually quote a report from
the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission that came out Nicole in
twenty seventeen, okay, before the pandemic. This is an eight
(09:12):
year old report, and they were looking at affordability of
the Merrimack Valley. And in that report, there's a tiny
little caption under a graph pick or something. There's a
tiny little caption that says, in twenty seventeen, there was
not a single, not a single rental unit in the
Merrimack Valley that was lowercase a affordable based on the
(09:37):
median income of a rental household.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
That was twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Twenty seventeen, because very certainly applus today seventeen, and it
has not gotten any better. I was sitting with one
of our elected officials on last Friday, and he said,
help me understand. And we have a great delegation who
is engaged and they want to understand. They want to
hear this, and they want to port the food Safety Net.
(10:02):
And so I was sitting with Senator tar I reached
out to him as we're beginning the budget process and
understanding their priorities and their concerns, and he said, help
me understand how the trend has gone. And so I
drew for him on on my whiteboard. I said, well, okay,
let's we started counting back in twenty ten. I came
(10:26):
to this organization in twenty ten. We started counting food
and secure individuals feeding America and the Greater Boston Food
Bank started putting out consistent data in like twenty thirteen.
I said, so we knew from two thousand and eight
to the recession in two thousand and eight really rippled
into our community. If you look at unemployment, it really
(10:46):
rippled into our region. In twenty ten, and we watch
food and security rates continue to climb from twenty ten
until through twenty sixteen. It wasn't until twenty eighteen we
saw them dip just a tiny bit just a tiny bit,
but still well above any year prior to that. So
(11:10):
it just continued to climb. It dipped a tiny bit
in twenty eighteen, and then twenty twenty hit and it skyrocketed. It.
It nearly doubled a seventy five percent increase in food
and security in our region, just in our immediate region,
and it fell down a little bit about thirty percent
coming into twenty twenty two, twenty twenty one. But my
(11:32):
prediction based on history was that from twenty twenty, we're
just going to continue to see it climbed. So we
had that drop, that thirty percent drop from ten thousand
to seven thousand, but we were already in twenty fourteen
it was like four thousand.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And so we dipped down to seventy five hundred, and
then we just keep climbing. We are serving just our
neighbor's table alone. We are serving thirty one percent more
people in twenty twenty four, I mean going into twenty
five than we were in twenty twenty when unemployment was
eighteen percent in our meeting region. Wow. So these are
(12:11):
working people, these are retired people. You know, it's closing
the gap.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, And you bring up a great point in that
these are people who are trying to put food on
the table. And you mentioned stigma a few minutes ago,
and we've talked about this on the show as well,
how people don't want to be hungry, they don't want
their kids to be hungry. There is that stigma of
oh you're lazy, or oh you're a welfare queen, or
oh you're just living off the safety net. You talk
(12:41):
to anybody who is food insecure, I highly doubt you're
going to find somebody that says, yeah, I love being
food insecure. It's totally how I want to be. It's
just not that way.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, no, it's not at all. And you know, one
of the really wonderful things that when I join this
organization fifteen years ago that I so appreciated was there
was no us in them. It was just neighbors helping neighbors.
They were people who rolled up their sleeves and were
willing to walk the walk. There's a lot of talk,
(13:13):
there's a lot of lip service, but when it gets
down to brass tacks, you know, one, cooking and moving
food around is not an easy chore. And to create
that community where people really feel listened to, they feel welcomed.
We exist for no other reason than to put to
give food away. So why on earth would I make
(13:35):
it difficult for someone to come through my door? I mean,
just like any business, right, our purpose is to deliver
this product and service. And how what good am I
if I don't get anybody to come through the door.
And so our number one testimonial or a number one
source of referral is existing guests. Even when we designed
(13:56):
the free grocery store, people always ask well, how did
you come up with this idea? Well, I asked the
people that were coming to get food what kind of
experience we had. In twenty fifteen, we were gifted a
property we knew we had to renovate it. I said, well,
what kind of experience do you want to have when
you come here? Because of the time, we had a
small food pantry in the back of a church, And
(14:17):
so what kind of experience do you want to have
and what kind of food do you need most? And
they said, you know, we just want to be able
to come in and shop. We want to be able
to get the food that we need. You know, parents
were saying, I want to make sure that I'm getting
food that I know my kids are going to eat. Right.
Seniors are saying, you know, well, I don't give me
a prepack bag because half the stuff I don't I
(14:38):
can't eat, I won't eat. I'm just a single person.
We want to be able to just come in. We
just want to feel normal. We just want to be
able to feel like we're just going to your typical
grocery store. And so that's what we built. And then
when we ask them what they need most from us,
you know, every year, space and money are limited. What
do we need to make sure we have on the shelf.
(15:00):
We've been asking that question going back to twenty eleven,
and it's fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, you know,
good proteins, dairy things that we all know are critical
pieces of a healthy diet. But they are the most
expensive per calorie in the grocery store and happened for
decades and there's no sign of that changing. And so
(15:23):
you know, we made sure so our markets are you know,
have all the refrigeration they need. We have refrigerated storage,
we have you know, warehouses that support each of our
grocery stores. Because whether you're shopping when we open on Monday,
or you're shopping when we're closing on Saturday. You need
to know. I don't want to create that panic. So
(15:43):
everybody shows up on the one day they think the
truck is coming in. I don't know if it comes
in and out all week, just like your typical grocery store.
Because whether you can get here on Monday or you
can get here on Saturday, you need to know that
this is reliable for you and your family. And you know,
families report that save fifty to one hundred dollars a
week in food costs by shopping with us. That's two
(16:07):
to four hundred dollars a month that we're putting back
in their pockets so that they can pay rent, they
can pay their utilities. You know one story that one
woman that came to us for the first time. She said,
I tried many times to come. I'd come, I'd leave
empty handed because I was afraid to come in. And
then one week I had five bucks and I either
put that money in my gas tank so I could
(16:28):
get to work, or I went through the drive through
to get something for my kids for dinner. And she
had she had to come, and so you know, to
put four hundred dollars in back in her pocket every
single month.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Huge, huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
And it let her. You know, she walked out of
here with her head held high, and she talked to
other people who are going through this and realized she
wasn't alone. And she's an ambassador. She talks to people.
She works for a domestic violence organization. Now you know,
she continues to pay it forward. She's raised two beautiful
(17:04):
children who one has gone on to a trade, one
has gone on to college, and now they are productive
members of society.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I wanted to kind of move on to something you
brought up in that you're in this network of food
pantries and places like yours around the Merrimack Valley. It's
kind of like a food hub of sorts. Tell me
about how you get your products. I know there's the
Seacoast Regional Food Hub. You've got the Merrimack Valley Food Hub.
You were talking about, how do you fill up the market?
(17:33):
How does it all happen behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, there's there's a lot going on, and so so
just to clarify, we have the Seacoast Regional Food Hub.
That's the that's our one hub, and we serve we
serve the lower Merrimack Valley, so basically everything from and
over out to the out to the ocean and as
far south as Rowley, Wow and and Boxford. So we
(17:59):
you know, for our neighbor's table, two thirds of our
food comes from the Greater Boston Food Bank, and for
a number of our partners, one hundred percent of their
food comes from the Greater Boston Food Bank, or you know,
over ninety percent. And then other members are not members
of a food bank. Some are members of the Merrimac
(18:20):
Valley Food Bank in Lowell. So that's I wanted to
just make that distinction. Yeah, and others are just piecing
food donations or they're going out and buying whatever food
that they're cooking and giving out. And so we really
have a very piecemeal food supply. I don't think you know,
(18:41):
when you think about your grocery stores. None of us
ever thought about food supply until COVID, right, and all
of a sudden, our grocery stores were bare, and we
didn't understand why can we not get toilet paper? I
never but we all learned more than we ever wanted
to know about supply chain. But that's important to understand
where the things that you can soon come from. And
(19:05):
and for the food safety net, we have a very
peacemeal food supply. And so for those of us who
belong to a food bank, and the Greater Boston Food
Bank does a stellar job, and they use state funding
they use they receive food that's funded through a federal
(19:27):
line item under the US Department of Agriculture under the
Farmville UH and then they get private funding, their own
private funding that they use and they work with the
other food banks across the Commonwealth UH to do collective
buying so that they get better better pricing. And they
actually was really wonderful about our food banks here in
(19:49):
Massachusetts is that they survey us as their customers and
ask what are your customers demanding, like what are what's
what's high and demand, what's high need, and they use
their collective power to then go out and procure and
purchase that food supply. So for those of us who
are lucky enough to block to a food bank, we
(20:09):
have a somewhat consistent supply of those particular products. Those
are you know, a lot of a lot of the
shelf stable things, canned vegetables, canned fruits, beans, pasta, rice, cereals,
some juices, boxed milk, and then they do go out
(20:29):
to get produce. Actually, as one of the strategic partners
at the Great of Boston Food Bank, over the last
twelve years, we've really worked with them to increase the
percentage of fresh fruits and vegetables that they're distributing, and
also meat and fish and dairy, and so we have
(20:50):
that that's somewhat consistent. But the reality is is that
you know, just the one Grid of Boston Food Bank
alone has over six hundred members up and down eastern Massachusetts,
and we're all seeing that thirty percent increase over the
last three years. There's no one food supply that can
keep up with that, and so we have a little
bit of somebody once compared it a little bit of
(21:11):
a game of hungry hippos, like, oh get did I
get that? Did I get that palette of product before
my people down on the South Shore got it? So
it's a little bit of hungry hippos. No one food
supply source can meet any need right now, business works
on one supplier, and so our neighbor's table. Since we
(21:31):
open our last facility in twenty sixteen, we developed the
capacity to be able to go out locally to local farms,
local retailers, local food manufacturers who have that surplus. It's
not garbage, it's not expiring product. It's surplus product. And
(21:52):
we've been moving about two hundred to three hundred thousand
pounds a year out of that surplus line into food
and secure house. Wow, most of our part. But we
could do that because we had a truck and then
we got to a second truck, We had a warehouse,
we had some refrigeration. When we opened that new facility,
we surveyed our folks in the in the COVID peak
(22:14):
in twenty twenty, when money was flowing to invest in infrastructure,
we said, hey, what does everybody need. We can write
a grant for the group. And people were like, well,
we can't keep up with the food supply, but we
don't have refrigeration, we don't have trucks, we don't have storage.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Or we can't get it places.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
We put in a grand We got some funding to
put some things in place piecemeal, you know, temporarily, to
get them through the crisis. We said we need a
long term solution, and so the Sea Coast Regional Food
Hub it's based in Salts Very on Rootline. It's easily accessible.
So the Greater we have what's called a cross stop,
So the Greater Boston Food Bank actually brings food up
(22:51):
here to its member agencies rather than all of us
having to go down to their Boston warehouse.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And that's not a fun drive.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, six members, and we've actually so we've got seventeen
members in this region. Twelve of them are now using
the cross stock. And these are you know, anyone who's
up in the Merrimack Valley, they know if they might
know us. Our neighbor's Table, Sacred Heart Saint Vincent de
Paul is the largest free grocery provider serving haverl neighbors
(23:22):
in need Lazarus House in core Unham are some of
the big players serving and working to meet the need
in the Greater Lawrence area. So all these agencies are
participating in the cross stock. The implication for this food
supply ripples across eastern Massachusetts because now we've moved three
(23:43):
hundred and forty five dock appointments out of Boston to
up here to the North Shore, and so there's three
hundred and forty five appointments available now to the rest
of the membership that they can go and access it
in Boston, so it has a rippling effect across all
of eastern Massachusetts. It's really it's in our hole locally,
(24:04):
is that all of our partners, all of our coalition
members will be able to then provide this free grocery
store model. So it's just in reliable and equitable access
to food. But we need to have more diverse food supply,
We need to have a better distribution plan, so really
transforming the whole safety net from the guest experience, the
(24:28):
person who's coming and shopping all the way through to
the just general distribution. So I'm really excited about that,
and all of it is driven to coal by our
desire to replicate success that we had. In twenty eighteen,
we declared the City of Amesbury food Secure. Wow. Food
is universally available to everyone who lives in Amesbury, whether
(24:52):
they can afford to buy it or not, whether they're
five or ninety five, whether they're sick they're healthy. We
put that stick in the ground. We achieved that milestone
in twenty eighteen in the City of Amesbury. It was
tested by a global pandemic. Never would have asked for
that kind of test, but sure proud be able to
(25:13):
say to report out in July of twenty twenty, when
unemployment in ames Ferry was seventeen and a half percent,
and that's primarily affecting working families. The school district again
a sign of a food secure city because it's cross sector,
it's seamless, it's universal that touches every resident in every context,
(25:35):
the school districts are a critical partner. The school district
was putting out a survey to try to figure out
what fall of twenty twenty was going to look like.
And in that survey they included questions similar to the
Hunger Vital Signs to find out whether or not families
are worrying about or going without food at that time.
At that time reports across the Commonwealth, across the country
(25:56):
put family food and security rates at fifteen to twenty
percent or higher. Again, unemployment was seventeen and a half
percent in Eamesbury. You were then six percent of families
said that they were even worried about food. Wow, And
because they did that survey, we actually could pinpoint in particular,
(26:17):
for whatever reasons, it was our middle school families. And
he said Okay, well, now we know we've got to
reach out to them. We got to target and make
sure that the programs are accessible to them. And so
you know, I never want to ask for another global
crisis to test our resilience. But we have built a
model to build community level food security and also to
(26:42):
measure it. And then only when you have a food
secure community can you expect households to feel food secure. Sure,
because if there's not universal food access, if today kids,
you know, families and kids are getting the food, but
next year maybe we're going to just focus on seniors,
then it's like, you know, as Bill Addage, we're robbing
(27:04):
from Peter to pay Paul. Or you know who I
eat today, you eat tomorrow. That's not food security. So
when you have universal food access in the community that
touches all ages, all demographics, there is no stigma. The
community is engaged in investing over the long term. We
were meeting the need starting in twenty fifteen. We did
(27:27):
not declare food secure of food secure city until twenty
eighteen because we saw that it was sustainable, it was
being sustained and so we're actually pretty close here in Salisbury.
We're pretty close our investments. We went from serving eighty
percent of the need in twenty twenty to one hundred
and thirty seven percent of the need in twenty twenty four.
(27:48):
You've need store here at O and T. We opened
a market at the Senior Center. We bolstered the food
supply for another food pantry partner and putting it out
on main Street, making it making it socially acceptable to
get the help that you need when you need it.
And so so that's our drive, that's our driving motivation
(28:10):
to do this, because we've seen it happen, we know
it's possible. Food and security is not a natural disaster. No,
it's a man made problem, a human it's a human
made problem.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
There's plenty of food out there, especially here in the
United States of America. I think about that all the time.
How we have these giant supermarkets. You know, I'll be
walking through Market Basket or Weagmans or whatever. I'm like,
there is so much food, and I hate thinking about
what happens to it when it's close to going bad.
And you hear these stories about all these dumpsters being
(28:42):
filled with all this food that's perfectly usable. And I'm
so grateful that a lot of that food is going
to the people who need it through programs like yours.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
A third of the food produced in this country goes
into a landfill every year, which.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Is just sacrilegious to me because people are in need clearly.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And it's not you know, it's not a malicious thing.
You know, I think when I talk to people about
why is there so much food waste? Well, you know,
even like think about a farmer, Well, a farmer has
you know, I'm not a farmer, so I'm going to
speak that doesn't make sense. But you know, you have
an acre of land, and on that land you can
(29:19):
you can you can grow one hundred broccoli plants for
the same price or as as growing you know, a
thousand when you're going to grow the thousand, and you
hope that you're going to find consumers for that, yeah,
and you may not. And it's just like in food manufacturing.
If you can produce a million boxes of cereal for
(29:41):
the same price as seven hundred and fifty thousand boxes,
produce the million for the same price, and you might
find a paying customer to close that gap, or you
might not. And the federal government, the Federal line item,
it's called t fat te FAP, the Emergency Buddhistance Program.
It's part of the farm bell and that money goes
(30:03):
if there's a surplus, the government buys that product and
it has to go. Part of the policy is that
has to go to the food bank network, and so
it goes to the food banks and then the food
banks distribute it to local community programs like ours. So
that's something we really need to protect. But you know
(30:24):
all of this. We talk about the food supply, and
we talk about these grocery stores, and you talked about
the impact of food security, right like kids, people go
to work and kids go to school, and when we
invest in government programs school meals, for example, when school
(30:47):
we were tracking with the city of newbury Port, we
got funding in twenty nineteen from United Way to train
teachers and school administrators on food and security, replicating something
we did in the healthcare. Health care sector, there's a
power dynamic. We talked about stigma. Parents don't want to
tell their teachers that they can't feed their kids, right
(31:08):
They're afraid they're going to report them for neglect or
all these other things. Rightfully, you know that fear is legitimate.
So we worked we trained teachers to talk to on
how to work with families around that power dynamic, just
the prevalence of food and security in their schools. And
we started tracking how many nutrition related visits there were.
(31:32):
So kids going to the nurse's visit the nurse's office
saying they're hungry. Now there's a whole bunch of reasons,
you know, uh, you know, Lindsay didn't study for test,
or she just didn't get a good night's sleep or whatever.
But we started tracking nutrition related visits and when they
instituted universal school meals during the pandemic, the number so
(31:55):
they tracked the number of kids getting taking the lunch
at school, which was really high, particularly because we couldn't
get food at the grocery store to mix sandwiches for
our kid. Right, And we saw almost by fifty percent
the drop in nurse visits. Now this is during a
health pandemic nurse visits, but this is specifically nutrition related visits.
(32:20):
We saw that drop. What does that mean? Will you
figure every visit it's about fifteen minutes out of the classroom. Yeah,
so we just put back fifty percent of that out
of classroom time. Right, So that's the kind of implication.
We have data that shows that the most effective program
(32:40):
in ending, decreasing, ending childhood hunger is SNAPPED Supplemental Program
otherwise known as food the debit card. People get monthly
allowance to be able to go to a food retailer
and buy retail food. They can't buy alcohol, well, they
can't buy tobacco, they can't buy shampoo, they can't even
(33:03):
buy diapers or feminine hygiene products, and they can't they
can't even buy prepared food, although we're working to create
legislation in the in the Commonwealth that allows more people
to be able to use it, because if you're homeless,
you know, you need to be able to buy prepared foods.
And why shouldn't you be able to buy a rotisserie chickens.
(33:25):
I was just gonna say, family, it's like, you can't
buy a rotissary chicken. And so the data forever shows
that SNAP is the most effective way because it puts
money in their pockets to be able to go and
use for food. We have the SNAP gap right, and
we've been closing on closing in on this where the
(33:46):
SNAP gap is those who are eligible who aren't using
the program, and it's like anywhere from a third to
half of the people who are eligible are not using
the program. And we've seen those numbers in our communities,
and again it's stigma. It's the complexity of applying. And
so we have been working. We actually process and a
few of our partners process applications right here in our community,
(34:08):
so you don't have to track all the way to
a state office, you know, which is like a half
hour each way, and.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Because if you're a working mom, you don't have time
for that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
You don't have time for that, and you may or
may not actually have a set appointment time, and so
it's first come, first serve, and so it's an all
day affair. And if you have transportation, because in our
neck of the woods there isn't trans there. You know,
we have a growing MEVA transportation system, but it doesn't
cover the entire territory. And so last year our Neighbor's
(34:39):
Table we processed applications for I forget the number of families,
but we put four hundred and thirty three thousand dollars
in new money, annualized money into people's pockets that they'd
have in twenty twenty five to spend. Wow, it is
not only feeding those households, it's feeding the local economy.
(35:02):
It's supporting jobs, it's supporting farms, it's supporting retailers. I
don't know why food retailers and farmers are not screaming
at the top of their lungs. The latest you know this,
going back to twenty twenty two, USDA said in Massachusetts,
more than one hundred and sixty million dollars a month
(35:25):
in Snap dollars was going into the local food economy.
That's not that's not me like if you don't want
to spend Snap, if you don't want to have Snap dollars,
that means everyone's relying on free food from organizations like
our neighbor's table. That's that's a significant It's the average
person eats a thousand meals a year, and the average
(35:45):
food cost per meal is over four dollars a meal
if you go to a retailer and buy it, not
not like going out to eat. So four point fifty
times one thousand, forty five hundred dollars per person, So
around that to just say four thousand for easy, we
served over six thousand people last year, so six thousand
(36:08):
times four thousand, twenty four million dollars a year venture
to feed those people plus the you know, plus the
operations here. That's just the food cost plus our operations,
right So, and that's just six thousand people out of
the you know, one out of three households in the
Commonwealth that our food.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Scure and on Beacon Hill. You know, do you feel
any pushback to that? I mean, obviously, federally, there are
a lot of changes going on right now that could
potentially impact your operations. But locally, do you still see
support for the work you're doing and promoting getting more
people on SNAP?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Absolutely? I think, particularly when it comes to SNAP. The
Commonwealth actually has expanded criteria eligibility. There used to be
a thing called categorical eligibility eligibility at the federal level.
So if you were if you were eligible for any
kind of Medicaid or Medicare or other types of financial assistance,
(37:05):
and you automatically were deemed eligible for a SNAP, that
was diminished and you know, it's a ping pong game.
But so there's expanded eligibility. We actually allow people up
to two hundred percent of the poverty level here in Massachusetts.
So when I use that reference point of fifty five
thousand dollars for a family of four if you didn't
(37:28):
live in the Commonwealth, if you lived in one of
our neighboring states, it's way lower. It's like of the
of the poverty level, and so your benefits to eligibility
would cut off in the forties. And you know, southern
New Hampshire is not much cheaper than mass Chusetts if
(37:51):
at all, and so uh, you know, the Commonwealth has
made efforts there. We also they also these contracts so
that we can be outposts helping the state offices reach
people who otherwise maybe would not be enrolling. So so
(38:11):
there are different things in our hip program, you know.
So that's that it allows basically gives people on snap
double the buying power if they're buying produce and from
farms or from other partner retailers. So looking for different
(38:33):
ways to leverage and give them more money and engage
more commercial partners. There's still a lot of room to
like just get out the bugs and figure that out.
You know. The key is whether or not we're funding
those programs at the level of that corresponds to the need.
So making sure that we're doing more to fund hip.
(38:56):
You know, based on utilization, we need to get more
farmers and retailers on board for that. It's not accessible
across the commonwealth, and you got to invest in that infrastructure.
And then others outside of snap. You know, continuing to
fund universal school meals is critical and that seems to
(39:18):
be a commitment of the legislature and the governor this year.
So we need to make sure that we safeguard that
me fat I mentioned the federal t FAT program, but
we have our own line item in the state budget
called the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistant Program. That's funding right
to the food banks and they use that money to
(39:40):
go out and buy the product that we get consistently.
That has not kept pace with the need at all,
it's lagging way behind. We need that funding to actually
be about fifty five million dollars this year to even
come close to meeting the demand. Those six hundred agencies
just from Greater Boston Food Bank alone, and you've got
three more food banks across the commonwealth. So being able
(40:03):
to secure that funding and I think that there's an epithet.
I told you I met with one of our our
senators last Friday. The delegates have been out to the
food Hub. They're engaging with their partners and it's on
us to continue to engage them because there are so
many challenges facing residents of the Commonwealth right now, and
so you know, we're all competing, we're all competing for
(40:25):
the same resources. But you know this is we could
spend wisely and invest in shared infrastructure that really helps
just you know, divert there's in twenty twenty two there
is a food waste van. So you can't dispose of
more than a ton a half ton a week of
food waste. Let's move into the safety net.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, it's a bipartis an issue too. You mentioned you
were talking with Bruce Tarr. He's the minority leader over
on Beacon Hills. So I mean this is an issue
that impacts people of both parties. That's right, Yeah, it
benefits all of us. How can people contribute to you
with their time, their energy? How can they help you
build out more of your grocery stores. How can they
(41:08):
make your mission a little bit easier for you to
carry out?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Absolutely, so they can. We still very much are We
have a small staff of about twenty employees and we
have six hundred and fifty volunteers.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
We really are boots on the ground operation. So we
are always always welcoming new volunteers. So our Neighbors Table
dot orgy it's a great resource to go whether you
want to help or you need help. Both links are
right on that page. And you know, for every dollar,
you know, every dollar contributed, our Neighbor's Table puts a
(41:43):
meal on the table.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
And so financial contributions are critical and right now, in
particular local private individuals, we're relying on them more than
ever because of the uncertainty at the state and federal level.
And so we are finishing our capital campaign and our
capital project for the Seacoast Regional Food Hub. We really
(42:08):
want to be able to expand that commercial surplus program
in twenty five, but we can't do that until we
finish this campaign, which will wrap up at the end
of March. We' sive one point eight million dollars left
to raise, and so you can go to you can
go to the main website, our Neighbors Table dot org,
or you can just go to fill them up dot org.
F I L L E M up. Fill them up
(42:30):
dot org Okay, and make a contribution, whether it's a
one time, a monthly, or a three year pledge. If
you have the capacity to invest more in the shared infrastructure,
then then we still we still need your help, and
we have lots of great sponsor and serve programs where
you can bring your team. It's great team building. I
(42:51):
like to call volunteering here a free gym membership, right,
And so you know, like I mean, we pick things
up and put things down all day long, and we yeah, yeah,
I won't stale anybody else's marketing, but we yeah, we
accept everybody. We are welcoming to everybody here, and we
don't charge you. So we need people to come in.
(43:14):
And if you're a food manufacturer and you've got surplus,
go to our website our neighbors Table dot org, email
me or any of our team members and we'd love
to get you, you know, partnered up with our hub.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Lindsey. This has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you for
all the info, Thank you for laying this out for
us so succinctly, and thank you for the work you're
doing in that part of the state. We really need
people like you and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Well. Thank you so much, Nicole. It's been a real pleasure,
and you know I appreciate your audience.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio
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