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Central Mass. groups work to fi ll void after USDA food program ends Stephanie Jarvis Campbell Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
With the recent conclusion of the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program, many people have been left without the fresh fruits and vegetables those deliveries contained. But the need for food in the city is far from over, according to local pantries and nonprofi ts. Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service partnered with distributors to purchase fresh produce, plus dairy and meat products. These family-sized boxes were then packaged by distributors and brought to food banks and community, nonprofi t and faith-based organizations. More than 173 million boxes were delivered across the country from May 2020 to April of this year. The program was designed to be temporary, but now, there is a void for families that depended on the boxes. “We’re missing about 500 boxes of food every week – that’s just the basic milk, cheese, fruit,” said Nelly Medina, lead organizer for the Parents Union of Massachusetts, or PUMA. “We have a population of people who have not rebounded from COVID, and they’re hungry and we don’t know how to feed them.” PUMA – under the umbrella of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, for which Medina is the Central Mass. regional organizer – ran a food outreach program from the Rock of Salva-
Willie Wheeler and Monroe Pitman deliver food to cars outside Belmont A.M.E Zion Church in Worcester as part of the Yes We Care and USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program April 28. The USDA program has ended, but Yes We Care has partnered with the YMCA, the Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging and the Worcester County Food Bank to continue providing food for those who need it. Several other local nonprofi ts and religious groups are working to fi ll the void. ASHLEY GREEN/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
tion Church. Throughout the pandemic, the organization worked with hundreds of families to distribute the USDA boxes, Medina said. She was able to procure boxes from different distributors participating in the program, including World Farmers in Lancaster and the Massachusetts Military Support Foundation,
which is based on Cape Cod and has run its Food4Vets program for the last six years. In addition to helping Medina, the MMSF set up a distribution site each week locally at the Worcester Railers lot that was open to anyone. Although the MMSF’s main objective is to support veterans, it stepped in to help Central Massachu-
setts during the pandemic, according to Tom Foley, a member of the group’s board of directors. Now that the Farmers to Families program has ended, Medina is searching for ways to get food to the families. “I wake up in the morning and have breakfast with my son, and I think, ‘This is crazy.’ I can feel
the ripple going through my heart, knowing that my brothers and sisters aren’t getting enough,” she said. Medina said that although there are other food banks in the city, they are not always viable options for the people that PUMA helps. Many are homebound because they don’t drive, are disabled, may have an at-risk family member at home or are not vaccinated, she said. In addition, sometimes long lines at food pantries and hours of operation prevent people from utilizing certain pantries – plus, if fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy are available, it is quickly dispersed, Medina said. “The phones had stopped ringing and now they’re ringing again – like they were a year ago,” she said. Yes We Care, a nonprofi t in Worcester that off ers services and support to youth and families, also participated in the USDA program. A food hub was set up at Belmont AME Zion Church at 55 Illinois St., and by the end of the program, more than 5,000 boxes were distributed, according to the Rev. Clyde D. Talley, president and CEO of Yes We Care. What was benefi cial about the program, he said, was that anyone could utilize it. “It’s not just people who are distressed or poor. Life happens. People lose their jobs. There may have been a major expense in the house; now the money’s not there,” he said. “You never know somebody’s See PROGRAM, Page 11
