This pandemic has revealed and exacerbated the vulnerabilities of our current food system. We continue to witness disruptions to the economy and food supply chain on both a global and local level, while the need for basic services has increased dramatically. Shifts in large portions of the food industry in these past 12 months led to tremendous amounts of waste upstream, highlighting the critical need to build a more adaptive and resilient food network. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has experienced the highest percent increase in residents facing food insecurity of any state in the country, and many of the more than one million residents without access to healthy food are still not being adequately reached by relief efforts.
Our response to the COVID-19 crisis has been twofold, taking into consideration the biggest impact we can have in the short and long term. Because many of our distribution partners continue to see a more than 60% increase in demand for services, our top priority has been to mobilize to get sufficient quantities of perishables to these organizations to meet their needs. From May through October of 2020, we participated in the USDA's Farms to Families Program to purchase and deliver over 140,000 boxes (nearly 4.5 million pounds) of nutritious food to relief agencies serving food-insecure populations. Throughout and beyond that effort, we continue to connect the dots in a broken food system and provide trucking support to partner organizations capturing surplus food from the retail and distribution sectors to fight food insecurity.
At the beginning of winter, Boston Area Gleaners launched a collaborative effort with Food For Free to fill the widening gaps in food distribution for Massachusetts communities. The Just Eats Grocery Box Program has since December been sending thousands of family-sized food boxes each week to residents of Greater Boston, thanks to the efforts of our collective teams, volunteers, and partners.
We also re-engineered our volunteer operations in order to protect participants and maintain a food chain direct from local farms and agencies to families in need. We are deeply grateful to all the community members who safely and passionately joined us in the fields to glean this year, and expect to continue to host volunteers to pack food boxes at our Waltham facility through the spring. For more information on our current volunteer practices, please visit our Volunteer Page.
Support our Response Efforts
Every $25 donated provides 160 servings of fresh fruits & vegetables to families in need.
