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Date: 9/29/2021
AMHERST – The Amherst Survival Center wants you to take a hike.
The second annual Hike for Hunger kicks off on Oct. 1 in support of the organization that offers groceries, meals, supplies and services to local residents in need. The month- long fundraising effort encourages community members to meld their philanthropic efforts with exercise, fresh air and great views.
"There are three really amazing natural resources in this area that we take advantage of,” said Lev Ben-Ezra, executive director of the Survival Center. “The first, certainly with this event, is the outdoors. We also live in a place that is so abundant with local food and we are incredibly lucky to be connected to that network that provides local food resources. The third is the community and the people who want to make this place a place where people can live and thrive. We are powered everyday by more than 100 volunteers who help our small staff.”
Participants can register for a $25 donation and from there can set their own hiking and fundraising goals with the help of family and friends.
“As an example, I’m hiking in October with a group of my friends and we’ve collectively decided that we are going to hike a million steps in honor of the more than 1.1 million meals the Amherst Survival Center prepared and distributed to the community,” Ben-Ezra explained. “We’re asking our friends and family to support us in this.”
There is no minimum fundraising requirement, but the center is encouraging participants to raise as much as they can in order to win prizes from local businesses including water bottles, gift certificates, outdoor gear and wine tastings.
The Survival Center also plans to host three group hikes throughout the month to allow supporters to connect, meet new people and possibly explore new hikes. One of the hikes will be geared specifically toward families and children.
All of the money raised will support the various programs offered by the Amherst Senior Center, including its robust food programs as well as services for those experiencing homelessness such as lockers for storage, free laundry, private shower facilities and shelter from the elements.
The center, Ben-Ezra explained, offers free meals, bread and produce daily with no questions asked.
“We have a small team of staff and volunteers who are cooking every day, putting out 300 hot meals a day, plus additional snacks, breakfast items, sandwiches or salads,” she said. “We try to make sure we have options that are good tasting and nutritious.”
The center also offers a separate food pantry that individuals and families can take advantage of after a brief registration process. In addition to fresh produce, the pantry offers dairy products, meat and nonperishable items.
“We try to have a good range of kid-friendly stuff, lots of healthy options and natural foods, and things that appeal to a lot of different palates and cultural cooking traditions,” Ben-Ezra said.
Some of the most sought-after items are personal care products, specifically diapers, menstrual products and incontinence supplies. “Those are things you can’t buy with SNAP benefits or food stamps and so there’s a really significant need,” Ben-Exra explained.
The Survival Center has also distributed more than 10,000 reusable facemasks to prevent the spread of coronavirus so far.
The vast majority of the food is sourced through the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, without which Ben-Ezra said the Survival Center would not be able to operate. The organization fills the Survival Center’s 20-foot box truck with food at least twice a week.
The center also generates a significant amount of its food supplies through its food recovery networks. “Volunteers go out every morning to a number of local grocery stores and food establishments to pick up items that would normally go in the dumpster,” Ben-Ezra said, noting how recently the center was the beneficiary of cases of bags of oranges that would have been disposed of because a few were not in good condition. She added they also receive a fair amount of day-old bakery items. The recovery network regularly benefits from trips to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Market and Panera Bread.
Food also comes in the form of donations, whether from the Farmers Fighting Hunger – a close to a dozen farmers who make contributions at least weekly – or food drives and individual efforts.
With all of this support, however, the Survival Center still has plenty of expenses.
“The Hike for Hunger will help us keep the lights on and pay staff and keep our delivery vehicles operational,” Ben-Ezra said, adding the center still buys some food items, one of the biggest being milk. “We learned years ago from folks that they really didn’t like the shelf-stable milk that we had available through the Food Bank and that was really a priority for them, so we’ve started purchasing fresh milk.”
In the winter, the center must also purchase produce to supplement its donated or rescued stock. Additionally, they buy culturally inclusive food items through vendors.
Ben-Ezra said she was incredibly proud that while some of the dynamics had to change – some community programming and its health clinic were put on hold, the center never had to close during the pandemic and has not had a single issue with exposure or spread. Keeping services available has proved essential, she noted.
“When COVID hit, we really narrowed and deepened our focus on our nutrition programs,” she said. “The meals service has more than tripled since before COVID. Our food pantry gave out twice as much food last year. We really scaled up these programs to meet the rising food insecurity in the community.”
While scaling up food services, the center was also forced to scale back on volunteers due to space constraints, cutting back from 250 volunteers to about half that number.
The Survival Center is now in the process of reopening some of its services that were put on hiatus. For example, physicals required for children to attend school were offered in advance of the academic year.
Those interested in participating in the Hike for Hunger can register at https://amherstsurvival.org/hike-for-hunger. To learn more on how to volunteer or contribute to the center’s efforts, visit https://amherstsurvival.org or email volunteer@amherstsurvival.org. Monetary donations can be made at https://amherstsurvival.org/donate. Ben-Ezra specifically noted the Survival Center is currently in need of volunteers to conduct Thanksgiving food drives and those interested can email info@amherstsurvival.org.