Fighting Shortages at Local Food Banks

REGIONAL – In mid-September, local food banks, including the First Parish Church Food Pantry in Newbury, Pettengill House and Our Neighbor’s Table, were told by the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) that due to staff shortages, food supplies to local and regional food banks would be cut.
The GBFB has food in its warehouses, Catherin Lynn, a GBFB spokesperson, said, but with than half of its 25-person, full-time staff, it is unable to distribute nearly as much food as is needed. The Boston food bank supports 190 communities in eastern Massachusetts.
Jane Merrow, who heads the all-volunteer program in Newbury that last week fed 624 clients, said the Boston food bank stop delivering frozen food, which is most of the proteins they distribute each week to families and individuals in the Newbury area.
At the same time, the number of people in need continues to rise. In recent months, the number of clients served jumped from 500 a week to approaching 650, Merrow said.
So, Merrow, who heads a team of about 200 volunteers, called for help through local social media channels. Individuals, groups like the Newburyport Lions Club and grocery stores stepped up.
Last week, as supplies in the building behind the First Parish Church dwindled, trucks rolled in, delivering 23,000 pounds of food.
“It was amazing,” Merrow said. “What a wonderful community this is.”
Neighborhoods held food drives. The Lions Club collected 2,000 pounds of food at Shaws in Newburyport. Shaw’s in Ipswich started sending baked goods. Shaheens in Amesbury continued to send 500 to 2,000 pounds a week.
The garden club at the church also stepped up. Each delivery of food and supplies now includes an orchid grown in the all-organic garden in the rear of the church.
The demographics of the food bank’s clients are changing. About 60 percent of the people the First Parish used to deliver food and supplies to were elderly. The number of elderly has not changed, but the number of younger families asking for food assistance has grown so much that only 35 percent of the deliveries last Friday went to the elderly, Merrow said.
The needs of younger families are different. She said now the food bank has to stock every type of diaper, rather than the Depends they used to stock.
The five-year-old First Parish also operates food banks in each of the five Triton Regional Schools, which was launched last year. “Teachers and nurses thank us all the time,” Merrow said.
Our Neighbor’s Table, which also has struggled to keep up with demand, is building a cross dock at its Salisbury facility to allow large trucks from GBFB to load smaller trucks for deliveries to food banks like First Parish and Pettingill.
She said the First Parish is operating in deficit each month. Asked how the food bank can continue to operate in the red, she said, “We have faith. God will provide.”
Raise organic food in the church gardens. Put a bouquet of flowers with every delivery.