GEORGETOWN − Our Neighbors’ Table (ONT) has opened its fourth free integrated market in partnership with the Georgetown Council on Aging, providing more healthy food for residents struggling with food insecurity.
The Georgetown market is open Mondays and Wednesdays and is available to anyone in Georgetown and neighboring communities, not just seniors. The partnership with ONT allows the pantry to source its food directly from it through the Greater Boston Food Bank with weekly deliveries.
“To make sure no one is slipping through the cracks and going without enough nutrition, it’s important we provide multiple layers of access to the food they need,” said ONT Executive Director Tracey Friedman. “Working with food provider partners like First Parish Newbury Food Pantry, Nourishing the North Shore and the Georgetown Council on Aging, residents of Georgetown and surrounding communities now have several options to access the food they need.”
Our Neighbors’ Table’s grocery program serves an average of about 2,000 people across 12 communities in Northern Essex County every week, providing access to fresh foods like milk, eggs, meats and fresh produce.
Residents of these communities are eligible to shop at ONT’s free grocery markets in Amesbury and Salisbury once per week. ONT also supplies fresh food to “integrated markets” at senior centers in Groveland, Merrimac, Salisbury and now Georgetown, giving older residents easier access to groceries to supplement their food budgets.
The Georgetown market is the result of two years of planning and advocacy on the part of Georgetown COA executive director Kristin Crockett. The pantry includes a new refrigerator to store fresh foods and added storage space.
Our Neighbors’ Table is a regional food access organization committed to establishing a community that provides for the whole person with nourishing food, kindness and dignity. Founded in 1992 in the parish hall of a church in Amesbury, Mass., Our Neighbors’ Table today provides more than 1 million meals each year. It currently operates a warehouse and free grocery market in Salisbury, a second free market in Amesbury, a weekly Community Meal in Amesbury and the Seacoast Regional Food Hub, a developing project to improve capture and distribution of food to providers in 17 communities across the Lower Merrimack Valley. Learn more at ourneighborstable.org.
Cutline: Opening the Georgetown food bank are from left: Tracey Friedman, Joanne Kimball, Kyle Lemire, Kristin Crockett, Greg Ezell and Christine Candia.
