Food pantries in greater Gardner are scrambling to find funding alternatives to fill the gap left by major federal cuts.
The weekly food kits that local food pantries in the greater Gardner area distribute to hundreds of low-income families and individuals will see a 30% reduction. This means those pantries will have fewer eggs, poultry, meats, dairy products, and fresh produce directly bought from local farms.
After the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut two federal programs that distributed over $1 billion to schools and food banks nationwide, local food banks, pantries, and farmers already started seeing the impacts. One of the programs is the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which allocates $3.4 million to Massachusetts so food banks can purchase food directly from local farmers and producers.
Jean McMurray, CEO of the Worcester County Food Bank, said she has had to cancel over $326,000 worth of food in the past week that the bank was planning to receive in the next two months. She said the food bank gets a third of the food it distributes to local pantries from the federal government, another third from the state government, and the last third is from food drives and private donations.
What does this mean for Gardner area food pantries?
In the Gardner area, the WCFB partners with the Gardner and Winchendon CAC, the Templeton Food Pantry, and Montachusett Veterans Outreach Center. These four food pantries receive about one-third of their weekly supplies from the Worcester County Food Bank in Shrewsbury.
The Gardner and Winchendon Community Action Committee serves nearly 11,000 residents annually through its food pantry programs. Both CACs aid not only Gardner and Winchendon families and individuals in need of food support but also residents in Ashburnham, Hubbardston, Templeton, Phillipston, and Westminster.
Gardner CAC executive director Julie Meehan said the organization will still be able to give out food to everyone who needs it, but they will just see less food in their food pantry kits.
Besides reducing the amount of food they can give out, Meehan said they also are likely to have to reduce the number of hot meals they prepare for their Fellowship Table program. The Fellowship Table program is a weekly lunch and dinner meal cooked by the CAC staff. Over 150 lunches and dinners are made every Thursday from October to May and then again July to August.
“I can’t emphasize enough how devastating this is. We and other non-profits relied on the Worcester Food Bank to keep up with the demand,” she said. “In the last few years, the number of people needing food support has increased by 60%, so it’s already tight enough now we will have to stretch our budget even more.”
Meehan said they are unsure if they have to reduce the food distributed in their holiday dinner baskets, which they do every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
What’s happening at the Winchendon CAC
Miranda Jennings, executive director of Winchendon CAC, said the majority of people who use their food pantry are the elderly with a fixed income and families with children. She said that in Winchendon alone, 40% of children under five are living in poverty.
“Winchendon has the highest levels of chronic disease in our region and it’s largely related to nutritional problems,” she said. “The access to healthy fresh food is really important, especially for children, because lack of (healthy) food affects their cognitive ability.”
“Produce is the most expensive food on the grocery list, but it’s also the most healthy food on the list,” she said. “We have many families who have to decide whether they will pay rent or their prescription drugs, or heating.”
Jennings said the federal cuts are also forcing the non-profit to undefinedits safety and business certification program this summer. She said the non-profit was able to train and get people certified in food safety so they could start their own businesses or find employment.
“People also want to work to get out of poverty, and this program would help them get certified for free so they could work towards a better life,” she said. “Now the grant is cut, we will have to wait to see if we can get other funding from somewhere else to continue the program.”
How the federal cuts impact the Gardner area agricultural economy
In addition to low-income residents receiving less healthy foods available at their community food pantry, local farms will also be affected. The second program cut by the USDA is the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which gives food banks and other non-profits money to directly purchase food from local farmers.
Ayn Yeagle, Executive Director of Growing Places in Leominster, said canceling the LFPA program will directly hurt the income of 33 farms in the North Central Area. These farms include Lone Larch Farm, Moonlight Farm in Ashburnham, Buckhill Homestead Farm in Westminster, and Sunset View Farm 1790 in Winchendon.
“Every week we would buy $7,000 of produce from local farmers and distribute it to 27 communities,” she said. “This is a double hit for not only low-income families but the local economy and farms.”
“In order for us to continue to support farms and low-income families, we will have to pivot and look to local institutions for help,” she said. “There is a difference between food security and nutrition security, and nutrition security decreases the cost of healthcare and supports our local economy.”
The Winchendon CAC would receive 29 free boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables from Growing Place weekly. Jennings said each box is about $40 to $60 worth of fresh produce, but they will stop receiving them at the end of May.
“It doesn’t make sense to me because every dollar spent fuels the local economy,” she said. “Why cut a program that stimulates the local economy and provides healthy food to everyone?”
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