Frontline Providers Hustle To Keep City Fed

A comprehensive digital guide to food pantries and soup kitchens. A drive-through farmers market with no cap on doubled food stamp dollars. Mutual aid collaborations designed to get food to immigrants in need.

Those are among the grassroots efforts in town to make sure New Haveners don’t starve during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Several dozen New Haveners crowded into Wednesday morning’s virtual meeting of the Food Policy Council held via the Zoom teleconferencing app to talk about those efforts as the city enters its second month of dealing with the novel coronavirus outbreak and its related public health, social, and economic crises.

Council members associated with organizations ranging from the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE) to CTCORE-Organize NOW! to CitySeed to the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) weighed in on what they’re doing — and what still needs to be done — to make sure New Haveners are able to access food at a time when an increasing number of residents have lost their jobs and are all but trapped at home.

“I have been on so many calls with local partners every day,” said city Food Systems Policy Director Latha Swamy, talking about how best to get food on the table for the elderly, the homeless, the unemployed, and families in need.

Food stamp applications have quadrupled in Connecticut since the start of the pandemic.

Swamy said the challenge presented to groups like the Food Policy Council, an 11-member volunteer advisory board for the city charged with working on a variety of food issues that affect individuals, families, businesses, and the environment, is to work as collaboratively as possible to push food access — and equitable food policy — to make sure all New Haveners can continue to feed themselves and their families.

Covid Emergency Food Resource Guide

CARE Director Alycia Santilli (pictured) said that, soon before the coronavirus outbreak, her organization helped establish the Coordinated Food Assistance Network (CFAN), a collaboration amongst New Haven food pantries, soup kitchens, witnesses to hunger, and other food access advocates all working to ensure widespread access to food throughout the city.

Then Covid-19 hit, and their work took on a whole new level of urgency.

“We have a Covid-specific emergency food resource guide that is updated almost daily,” Santilli said. ​“We hope that it it’s the most up-to-date resource on food assistance in New Haven.”

Click here to access that document, which includes a comprehensive list of local soup kitchens and food pantries, along with their hours of operation, written in both English and Spanish.

She said CFAN has also set up a food pantry delivery system, called ​“pantry to pantry.” In three weeks, they’ve distributed groceries to roughly 450 local households, she said. That program is currently being run out of DESK and the Loaves and Fishes food pantry downtown. She said the pantry system just added the Keefe Center in Hamden as another grocery pick-up spot.

With the help of a recently received grant from Yale University’s local Covid-19 fund, Santilli said, CFAN hopes to reach even more families. ​“We’re really hoping to expand to at least 1,000 households.”

Fair Haven Community Health Care Director of Development Karen Nemiah added that her organization is also planning a mobile food-drop off program in conjunction with the Connecticut Food Bank this Saturday that should deliver food to roughly 150 families, many of whom live in Fair Haven.

“Our plan is to just keep doing this as long as people can’t pick up food,” she said.

Mutual Aid

CTCORE-Organize NOW! Co-Deputy Director and Love Fed New Haven Executive Director Raven Blake said that CTCORE, Common Ground School, and Haven’s Harvest are all collaborating on a mutual aid effort focused largely on food access, as well as the provision of other non-food essentials to residents throguhout the city.

She said those deliveries take place Wednesday and Saturdays for anyone who fills out the mutual aid form on the CTCORE website.

People can fill out either what they would like to receive through the mutual aid effort or what they can offer to others in need.

Blake said the organization also recently set up a pledge form for people to donate all or part of the stimulus check that they’re slated to receive from the federal government.

“We’ll be donating the stimulus funds to folks who will not be benefiting from that,” she said.

Common Ground Food Justice Education Coordinator Disha Patel (pictured) said that the West Rock-based high school is acting as a food distribution site not just for mutual aid, but also for its own students, families, and staff members most at risk of food insecurity.

She said the school distributed 53 shares of produce to Common Ground students and families and staff this week. She said that that number increases by 10 families every week.

SNAP Boost At Farmers Markets

CitySeed Executive Director Amela Reese Masterson said that the local farmers market nonprofit has also stepped into the mutual aid world by fiscally sponsoring the Semilla Collective’s ​“Food Garage,” where Luis Luna and Ariana Shapiro distribute food and cash to primarily immigrant families in New Haven.

Masterson added that the city’s farmers markets are also still taking place during the pandemic.

“We’ve adapted our farmers market to be a pre-order pick up and drive-through farmers market,” she said. It’s taking place in the parking lot of Metropolitan Business Academy on Water Street. She said CitySeed is looking for a larger parking lot to move the operation to, since they often reach capacity in terms of how many vendors and customers they can accommodate in that lot.

And CitySeed is still doubling the value of SNAP benefits spent at the fresh produce markets. Unlike before the pandemic, Masterson said, there is no more $10 per day cap on the doubling of SNAP benefits.

CitySeed’s Sanctuary Kitchen program, run by local refugee chefs, is also still up and running — not with its usual schedule of programs and cooking events, but rather through a pre-order curbside pickup or delivery business twice a week.

Witnesses To Hunger

Kim Hart (pictured) of Witnesses to Hunger and Mothers and Others for Justice said that her organization of New Haveners who have first-hand experience of food insecurity has continued to meet, including through its first Zoom meeting held in March.

“We are here for lived experience,” she said. ​“The learned experience is good. But the learned and the lived go hand in hand.”

She said the group is working on setting up a phone tree for members to check in on one another and see what kind of support they need.

“We are more than willing to volunteer for anything that is needed,” she said. ​“We are a group of people who are passionate about this and who know what it means to be hungry.”

Food For Seniors And The Homeless

And from the city’s side, Swamy (pictured) said that the public school system continues to distribute free meals to families from 38 different sites around the city — now on a three-day-a-week pick-up schedule. Families can pick up two days’ worth of meals at a time.

She said the city is also working closely with Meals on Wheels to provide food for seniors who can no longer attend the city’s three senior centers, which have been closed for a month due to the public health state of emergency.

She singled out Vertical Church for praise as a group that has been delivering groceries to seniors whom the city has identified as needing food support.

“The city is also responsible for feeding individuals who have been decompressed from homeless shelters and placed into hotels,” she said. Those who are now living out of hotels have limited access to soup kitchens, she said.

Swamy said that the city is looking to contract with restaurants to provide meals to these hotels so that those who have been displaced from shelters don’t go hungry. ​“We’re still working out those details.”

Newhallville Food Pick-Up

Also on Wednesday, but not at the Food Policy Council meeting, Newhallville resident Devin Ashalom-Smith sent out an email press release about various food pick-up sites currently operating in Newhallville.

“Over the past four weeks Inspired Communities, Inc and Neighborhood Rx (local non-profit organizations) have provided 1,039 bags of food to residents in need,” he wrote. ​“Each event garners approximately 150 — 250 people. Alder Delphine Clyburn is currently working with Mayor Elicker and Governor Lamont in order to find a solution to provide emergency food assistance to Newhallville (New Haven’s most impacted and food-insecure neighborhood).”

Those sites are:

New Haven Church of Christ, 16 Gem St., Thursday, from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Mount Hope Temple, 565 Dixwell Ave., Friday, from 5:30 to 6:15 p.m.
Breakthrough Church, 481 Shelton Ave.