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Date: 5/10/2022
NORTHAMPTON – Grow Food Northampton (GFN) and the Northampton Survival Center are collaborating on the 2022 Community Food Distribution Project (CFDP), an effort to aid people experiencing food insecurity which started during COVID-19 as the need increased.
“We’re working to create a just food system in this area, and we work mainly on sustainable agriculture as the means to do that. We’re assisting local farms to sell their vegetables, we grow our own vegetables with a community garden, and we have 10 farms that we lease land to so we’re also a sustainable agriculture organization,” said GFN Executive Director Alisa Klein. “Our role for the Community Food Distribution Project was to get fresh, local, mainly organic produce and to pair it with the shelf-stable goods from the Northampton Survival Center and to do doorstep delivery to people experiencing food insecurity because of the [coronavirus] pandemic.”
Klein said the survival center shut down its building right when COVID-19 hit to essentially retrofit to be safer and comply with guidelines. The center struggled to distribute food but knew that Northampton desperately needed the center’s services. People were laid off, sick and caretakers in their families were forced to stay home or their kids were home with schools being shut down.
“Food insecurity rose exponentially in Northampton,” Klein said. “We went to the survival center and said, ‘Can we partner with you? If you can supply us with the shelf-stable goods, we’ll purchase fresh produce from local farms in the area and pair them with the shelf-stable goods. We’ll do the delivery to people’s homes’ because the survival center had only done on-site pickup before that, and we knew that we needed a different modality to get food to people because they couldn’t leave their homes.”
GFN has a history of emphasizing widespread access of produce from local farms. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, GFN would conduct mobile markets where they went to various subsidized housing projects and sell fresh, local produce at a diminished rate. With their collaboration and increased effort in recent years, GFN has been able to vastly increase the number of people they serve. Klein said they have delivered over 40,000 food packages since COVID-19 began and purchased over 450,000 pounds of produce from local farms to be distributed to 15 subsidized housing communities around Northampton.
“Having access to fresh food, to fresh, healthy, nutrient-dense local food should be a human right. It is a human right,” Klein affirmed. “It’s really important that every member of our community, no matter what their income level has the ability to access this healthy, fresh and local food. It’s also crucial that we support our local farms to grow this food, so this project has really been a win-win in the sense that we’re supporting our local farms to be able to continue to farm, and we’re getting their products to the people who need it the most.”
Volunteer shifts will meet at the survival center and load vehicles with produce. Volunteers will travel to the Hampshire Heights, Meadowbrook and Florence Heights neighborhoods on Tuesdays. Some bags will be delivered door-to-door, but they will also have a market table staffed for people to select their own items. Thursdays will have tables and deliveries to Salvo, Cahill and McDonald Houses. The GFN asks to use your own vehicle if possible and be prepared to load it with deliveries. Volunteers can register online at www.growfoodnorthampton.org/volunteer.
“The community has been overwhelmingly supportive of this project and we’ve had in the last two years we’ve worked with over 300 volunteers to help us deliver this food,” Klein said. “We’re over two years into the [coronavirus] pandemic at this point and we continue to do this work in partnership with the survival center without an end in sight.”