Burlington mayor allocates $10K to support, relocate local Food Not Cops free lunch downtown

BURLINGTON — Breanna Comiskey of Morrisville drives in about once a week to help serve food at “the wall” in the Marketplace Garage downtown.

“I think food is a human right,” she said Wednesday afternoon, between greeting folks who stopped by and keeping the crates of food and supplies organized on the red brick wall.

She decided to volunteer, she said, after seeing an Instagram post about the daily free food service of Food Not Cops.

A local offshoot of the global movement Food Not Bombs created in 1980, Food Not Cops is a mutual aid, non-hierarchical group of volunteers who have been cooking food and distributing supplies in a show of active resistance to war and poverty. 

The local effort has been in the news recently after a letter signed by more than 150 area businesses was sent to Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak alleging the operation in the garage “has had a negative impact on the area” and asking that it “be relocated to a more appropriate and secure setting—not eliminated.”

That led to a counter letter signed by dozens of organizations and businesses expressing support for the meal program, followed by a protest outside City Hall before the May 20 City Council meeting. And organizer Sam Bliss, wrote an op-ed stating that Food Not Cops makes downtown safer.

After hours of deliberation, the City Council last week voted to direct the mayor to relocate the free lunch distribution program by July 14.

As the debate continued in a City Council meeting Monday, Mulvaney-Stanak interrupted it and signed a resolution allocating $10,000 to support relocation of the effort “to a more accessible and better-resourced location.” That’s a significant increase from the $2,000 previously offered in the fiscal year 2025 budget.

Signing the resolution after two weeks of divisiveness and contention on the issue “was the best path to move us forward,” she said at a press conference Tuesday.

Mulvaney-Stanak said “mutual aid and food security is a critical need in our community. It has really grown in the last several years, and we as a community — I think everyone said this — value this.”

The funding allocated was news to some of those who came to lunch Wednesday.

Some said they use the wall of the garage off Cherry Street because there is no cleaner, safer place available, and because it allows for some privacy and protection from inclement weather. 

One volunteer wondered if a tent could be put up and a carpet put down for food distribution in the yard of the Ronald McDonald House across the street that provides shelter and food to families whose children are being treated at the hospital.

The money could support a community partner willing to host the food distribution or support Food Not Cops with items related to the relocation, Joe Magee, the mayor’s spokesperson, wrote in an email Wednesday.

“We are continuing to engage with members of the group, as well as community partners who have expressed a willingness to support efforts to find a suitable alternative location,” Magee wrote. “To my knowledge, the food distribution has not stopped, and it would be our hope to have the transition to a new location be as seamless as possible given the many folks in our community who rely on the consistency of the food distribution.”

After multiple conversations with members of Food Not Cops in recent weeks, Mulvaney-Stanak said at Tuesday’s press conference that there are broad opinions about what should happen next.

The main takeaway, she said, is that it is “incredibly important” for Burlington to have an easy-to-find, central location for a service that is “filling a real need.”

“Having food is not only a basic need being met but it de-escalates a lot of the high-risk issues that people can face when they don’t have that particular need met,” she said.

As city officials discuss the program’s fate, the volunteer-run effort continues to cook food nightly and distribute food daily from 1 to 2 p.m. from the red brick wall bordering the garage. They are welcoming residents who want to contribute time, supplies or money via their social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook, volunteers said.

Volunteers Wednesday served hot dogs, burgers, corn on the cob, apple sauce and roasted veggies, along with condiments, soda and water. They also distributed supplies like cleaning wipes, toothpaste, ibuprofen, bandages, lip balm, combs and playing cards, packed into plastic milk crates.

The foil trays containing the burgers and hotdogs were emptied within 20 minutes, feeding about 30 people, volunteers estimated.

But many of those served, like Alex Olsen, 44, came for the conversation and the camaraderie, rather than the food. He said he was unhoused for eight years, so he “completely respects” and loves “everything” about the Food Not Cops effort. He said he usually helps clean up after the meal.

“The people here are my friends,” Olsen said. “Any time I come here, it’s open arms, no one judges me, and if I eat I eat, if I don’t, I don’t.”

Olsen was one of the participants who attended the recent City Council meeting discussing the food service and spoke in favor of the program. 

“I feel it’s a staple in town and I don’t think there is any reason whatever for them to move,” he said Wednesday.

Burlington resident and clinical social worker Gina Frattone-Johnson has been volunteering to serve food at the garage for a few years. She said she’s seen a few fights and arguments there, but nothing that couldn’t be “disengaged rather quickly.”

“It’s an opportunity to engage in communal action. And I have a soft spot for people in my heart who are houseless,” she said.

One man who came to lunch earlier this year, she recalled, was really cold. She said she found him a shirt, while another volunteer found him a jacket and told him he could have a tent and sleeping bag, too, because his belongings were stolen.

“There aren’t many places people can go to eat, sleep and get community resources and maybe referrals,” Frattone-Johnson said.

As she helped pack up the crates and wheel the dolly to a van, Frattone-Johnson stopped to chat with a law enforcement officer parked in his black SUV nearby.

A woman with a walker stopped to ask if they had any money to spare, saying her son was sick and she needed bus fare to get to Rutland. 

Comiskey greeted her but said she didn’t have any money and asked the woman if she’d like some cold water.

“A lot of people are asking for money today,” Comiskey said later. “You can kind of gauge what’s going on here by what people are asking for.”