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Boston Globe
06-05-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
9 ways to fight food insecurity on a personal level
Approximately 18.4 percent of all households in Massachusetts Advertisement Ask your local food pantry what they really need (and really don't need). Donating food is not about spring cleaning, rummaging through your cupboard to find unopened cans of chickpeas. It should be purposeful, targeted, and useful. Call your pantry in advance to ask what's most helpful. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up 'They might not need another can of tuna but could really use cereal, cooking oil, or laundry detergent instead. Or consider giving something like gluten-free, low-sodium sun butter or almond butter,' Doane suggests, which are perennial necessities. Bigger isn't always better. If you're shopping for donations, size matters. 'Don't buy the biggest box of oatmeal or cereal at Costco. It's hard for food pantries to decide who to give a large box to — you don't want to play favorites when there's only one big box. Instead, buy two or three regular-sized items,' Doane says. Advertisement Run a food drive. Food drives can have a bigger impact than a la carte drop-offs: Working as a group generates more donations and more awareness. Needn't be complex: Just ask your pantry what it needs, and then ask guests at your next book club, dinner party, or soccer game to bring something on the list, only if they'd like. Leaving people an easy out is really important: If I've learned one thing about volunteering with my food pantry, it's that you really never know who's coping with food insecurity. Just because someone's on your rec pickleball team or in your book club doesn't mean they're in the same financial boat. Food drives should be judgment-free zones. To that end, a cardboard donation box — on the sidelines, at your doorstep, wherever — is subtler than collecting person by person. Bags of fruit await Waltham residents during a food drive in 2020. Erin Clark/Globe Staff Volunteer in person. Donating food or supplies is wonderful, but sometimes food pantries really need actual bodies: to drive delivery vans, staff shopping shifts, unload and organize inventory, and more. Plus, volunteering can offer a chance to connect with pantry shoppers: people just like you and me. Money is always welcome. Donating funds might seem like the route of least resistance, but it's actually hugely helpful. 'Your local food pantry can use that money to purchase a lot more food from their local food bank, such as at the Greater Boston Food Bank,' Doane says. Get creative: Schools, shelters, and nonprofits need donations, too. A few weeks ago, my kids and several friends put together Easter baskets for kids at our local Boys and Girls Club; the director had identified several kids who could really benefit. This was a win-win, because it was meaningful for them to pick out stuff their peers would like (Sour Patch Kids! Mad Libs!), and it also filled a need that wasn't directly addressed otherwise: We only found out because we inquired. Advertisement Maybe your neighborhood elementary school or community ed program needs to stock their snack closet for kids who come in hungry. Reach out and ask. Visit your town's Everything Is Free or Buy Nothing Facebook pages. This is an excellent way to get a sense of your community's needs and to reach out directly to people who might need help. Sure, some posters are there for hand-me-downs or dorm room furniture, but plenty of others post because they're struggling. Try the SNAP challenge. It can be hard to truly comprehend the restrictions of food insecurity if you've never coped with it. In March, the Food Research & Action Center launched a Last, but definitely not least: Only donate what you'd like to eat. 'I'm always trying to remind folks to stop giving food pantries the stuff that's in the back of your cupboard and is old. If you don't want it, no one else wants it — and it makes more work, sometimes at a cost, to food pantries,' Doane says. Kara Baskin can be reached at
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massachusetts Food Banks Face Devastating $3.3 Million Cut
$3.3 million is now on the chopping block for food banks in Massachusetts. The Greater Boston Food Bank just learned about the federal cuts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Greater Boston Food Bank CEO Catherine D'Amato says she's scrambling to figure out how to fill the new gaps after learning 122,000 cases of food will no longer be delivered here. 'Which that means, orders that have been in the cue that are being expected have been canceled,' said D'Amato. D'Amato says the food bank relies on the USDA for 17% of its food, especially for the fresh produce, dairy, and poultry. 'It's a significant amount, it's the first piece of information that we've gotten in terms of impact, so if that food's not there then families don't have access,' said D'Amato. The USDA sent the following statement in response to Boston 25 News: 'There has been no pause in regular TEFAP purchases. The funding that was designated from CCC has been repurposed. The Biden Administration created unsustainable programming and expectations using the Commodity Credit Corporation. Regardless, USDA continues to purchase food for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), with over $166 million spent in FY 2025 to date for program requirements. USDA also is using Section 32 purchases to support TEFAP, purchasing over $300 million in various poultry, fish, fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts. USDA recently approved an additional $261 million in Section 32 purchases to provide even more fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts to TEFAP. " 'The products that we know that have been cut include both some of those products still from the COVID-era funding and from other USDA programs,' said D'Amato. D'Amato says pre-pandemic, 1 in 8 people relied on a food pantry in Massachusetts. Since COVID, 1 in 3 people are food insecure in the state, and that rate remains the same today. 'At a time when there is rising food insecurity in this state, it's really concerning to see these cuts at the federal level,' said Ashley Randle, commissioner of the MA Department of Agricultural Resources. 'Hungry people need to be fed, everyone has a right to food, whether it's a USDA commodity, a state commodity, purchased or donated, that's the portfolio for us, the sources, any one of those sources can cause disruption,' said D'Amato. With these federal cuts, the Greater Boston Food Bank is hoping to gather more donations and possibly get assistance from state lawmakers. If you would like to donate or if you need help getting food, visit: The Greater Boston Food Bank Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Boston Globe
27-03-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
‘It's not realistic': New England food banks struggle to keep up with demand after federal government cuts $1 billion in funding
Related : Advertisement The uncertainty comes at a time of increasing food insecurity in New England, with many hunger relief organizations struggling to meet soaring demand. In Massachusetts, about Vince Hall, the chief government relations officer at Feeding America, said USDA officials told the organization that $500 million provided last year to support The Emergency Food Assistance Program was terminated. That's in addition to the About $3.3 million worth of food provided through the emergency food program scheduled to be delivered to Massachusetts food banks was canceled, the Greater Boston Food Bank told the Globe Thursday. Nearly $2.3 million worth, or about 105,000 cases, was slated for the Greater Boston Food Bank, the region's largest hunger-relief organization. Democratic Whip Katherine Clark condemned the cuts in a statement Thursday. 'Amid skyrocketing grocery prices, Republicans just stole more than $3 million in emergency food assistance from families across the Commonwealth — including 90,000 cartons of eggs. Nationally, they've robbed hungry families of more than $500 million in groceries," she said. Heather Paquette, the president of Good Shepherd Food Bank in Maine, said the organization was notified earlier this month that it would be losing out on $1.2 million in funding it expected to get over the next three years to help it purchase food from local farmers. Fifty percent of emergency food assistance deliveries the charity was scheduled to receive in the next several months have also been canceled, Paquette said. Advertisement 'We are already really running to meet the increasing need in the state of Maine with the stable sources of funding that we have been able to depend on for decades,' she said. 'An adjustment of that sort to the [food] we're moving through the state of Maine has significant negative impact on our ability to do our work.' Though some charities are hoping to recoup costs via private donors or state funding, the unexpected changes are likely to cause shortages in distribution, especially in the next few months. 'Because this is so sudden, we were really not planning for this, so we have to accommodate in the short term,' said Elsy Cipriani, executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank. The organization learned two weeks ago that the close to $1 million it was set to receive over the next three years through the emergency food assistance program was canceled and is trying to minimize the impact of the cut on partner agencies. 'But again, maybe we have to make some internal adjustments in terms of the number of staff members that are working in that program,' Cipriani said, referring to the Jason Jakubowski, the president and CEO of Connecticut Foodshare, said a delivery of 34 trucks was canceled and cost the organization about $1.75 million to replace, he said. Connecticut Foodshare also learned that it would lose $1 million in funds from the LFPA earlier this month. Advertisement 'This has been a real gut punch for a number of different constituencies over the last couple of weeks. We're nervous, and so are our local pantries,' he said. Andrew Schiff, the CEO of Rhode Island Community Food Bank, said the organization ordered 24 truckloads of food with the money provided to the state through the increased TEFAP funding. As of Thursday, they had received 10 truckloads. Fourteen truckloads, amounting to about 500,000 pounds of food, are in limbo.c 'Now, at least the stories we're hearing, we're expecting it to be canceled,' Schiff said. Without federal assistance, food banks are unlikely to be able to keep up their current scale of operations. 'It's unrealistic to think that there is a way that we'll be able to accomplish the goals that every food bank in the nation has without the ability to rely on USDA funding,' Paquette said. The Good Shepherd Food Bank serves about Jakubowski said the $2.75 million that was cut from Connecticut Foodshare would amount to close to five and a half million meals. The organization is hoping the state government will help it recover some of the cost, but Jakubowski is worried the recent cuts are just the 'tip of the iceberg.' 'My biggest fear is that we're entering an era in which more people are hungry, but we have less food to provide them,' he said. 'That's the nightmare scenario for us and for our local pantries.' Advertisement Paquette said that for Good Shepherd, the 50 percent reduction in funding is 'unrealistic' to recover. 'We will do everything we can to close that gap,' said. 'But it's not realistic. We could have used an additional 10 percent versus the reduction of 50 percent, given the increased need we have in our state.' Emily Spatz can be reached at
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘A vital program': USDA cuts millions of dollars worth of assistance to Mass. food banks
Shelves at Massachusetts food banks may look emptier after the most recent round of USDA cuts. On Thursday, the state's food banks were informed by the Massachusetts Office of Education that $3.3 million worth of The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) food items were cancelled by the USDA. The cancellations total about 122,000 cases of food assistance. According to a Greater Boston Food Bank spokesperson, nearly $2.3 million of that money, which equates to about 105,000 cases of protein, dairy, and produce, were scheduled to come to their facilities, but have since been cancelled. The food bank's president and CEO expressed concern about the cuts and what it means for the people they serve. 'The Greater Boston Food Bank is already facing increased demand for nutritious food across our network of 600 food pantries across Eastern Massachusetts,' President and CEO Catherine D'Amato said. 'TEFAP is a vital program that provides the Mass Coalition of Food Banks with a reliable source of fresh agricultural products including produce, proteins and dairy, the most requested items by the people we serve.' Thursday's TEFAP food items cancellation represents about 3% of the GBFB's total food distribution across Eastern Massachusetts. The items include pears, apples, dried plums and cranberries, and canned vegetables; proteins such as chicken, pork and canned salmon; as well as milk, eggs, pinto beans, and egg noodles. 'The cancelations of federal commodities will reduce food throughout our region, making it more difficult for food insecure people to feed themselves and their families,' D'Amato said. 'GBFB will need to raise money to replace and purchase this healthy food that our neighbors so desperately need.' Boston 25 News has reached out to the USDA for comment about the TEFAP cancellations. Last week, the USDA said they would be ending the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA), a pandemic-era program, after providing 60-day notification. It's unclear if the TEFAP cancellations are a part of these cuts. 'USDA is prioritizing stable, proven solutions that deliver lasting impact,' a spokesperson said in response to the LFPA ending. 'The COVID era is over—USDA's approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward.' Earlier this month, Governor Maura Healey criticized the Trump Administration for cancelling more than $12 million in federal funding, known as Northeast Food for Schools (NFS), in Massachusetts. The funds were to be used to provide local healthy food to child care programs and schools, and to create new procurement relationships with local farmers and small businesses, according to Healey's office. 'Donald Trump and Elon Musk have declared that feeding children and supporting local farmers are no longer 'priorities,' and it's just the latest terrible cut with real impact on families across Massachusetts,' she said. 'There is nothing 'appropriate' about it. Trump and Musk are continuing to withhold essential funding in violation of court orders, and our children, farmers and small businesses are bearing the brunt of it.' TEFAP, first authorized in 1981, is a federal program that helps supplement the diets of people with low-income by providing them with emergency food assistance at no cost. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
