Our speakers today are Susan Stock and Pam Brangan from the Shelburne Food Shelf.
Food insecurity and demand for the food shelf has soared during the pandemic, and more and more people continue to sign up. The community has really stepped up as well. Shelburne Farms, New Village Farms, Zen Center, home farmers have donated food. Fisher Brothers Farm donated ice cream and a freezer!!
https://www.shelburnefoodshelf.org
December 16, 2020
Charlotte Shelburne Hinesburg Rotary via Zoom
Bob Sanders, Carrie Fenn, Chris Davis, Nancy Danforth, Linda Gilbert, Charlie Kofman, Rosalyn Graham, John Hammer, Jim Donovan, John Pane, Denis Barton, Diana Vachon, Susan Grimes, Ric Flood, Dan York, Erik Kolomaznik, Laurie Burke, Jonathan Lowell, Terry Kennaugh, Bill Deming, Jessica Brumstead, France LeBlanc, Sam Feitelberg
Linda Gilbert has our opening words:
Hey Pooh
Yes Piglet
This thing seems to be going on forever.
You mean the pandemic?
Yes, I miss so many things.
What do you miss the most?
I miss hugs. Humans are good at hugs.
Updates on our service programs:
School lunch program is going strong- Diana will be helping out, joining Susan, Jonathan, John Pane and Susan in Shelburne. CCS still needs a volunteer to take Terrell’s spot in January.
We have lots of stuff from the coat drive and have been able to fill some needs with gift cards and various items. We have dropped off items to Champlain Housing Trust sites, Sustainability Academy in the Old North End, HCS, CCS and SCS. We’ll give out the rest after the holidays.
Ric Flood updated us on the fundraisers.
$8720 from the car raffle
$6145 from the letter writing campaign
Rhonda will send out notes to each member whose list generated donations, and she is sending out receipts to donors.
Ric is planning a Calcutta for those who supported the car raffle- he’d like us to solicit gifts for the Calcutta- Shelburne Farm, Bearded Frog, Flying Pig, other local businesses. The name Calcutta is from the slave auctions of India so we better change the name!! Call Ric if you have a donation for our yet to be named event.
Thanks to the PR team for getting articles into the newspapers and on Front Porch Forum.
Our speakers today are Susan Stock and Pam Brangan from the Shelburne Food Shelf.
Need from the food shelf has soared during the pandemic, and more and more people continue to sign up. The community has really stepped up as well. Shelburne Farms, New Village Farms, Zen Center, home farmers have donated food. Fisher Brothers Farm donated ice cream and a freezer!!
The Food Shelf has tried a few different methods of delivery- at the start of the pandemic recipients would drive up and volunteers would put boxes in their trunk. That didn’t work out so great so Pam found a survey to send to people so the boxes could be more individualized. Driving routes were created so driver volunteers could bring boxes right to people’s homes. They started losing drivers as summer ended and things started opening up, so the town offered the activity room in the town offices which allowed people to walk in one door, choose their food and walk out another door. They put screening protocols in place and have an appointment system to keep everyone safe. The extra space in the activity room has helped things move along quickly. The system has been working well and more and more people are signing up to get food this way. There are still some people who are not able to shop for themselves and they receive a paper survey for their food- volunteers then deliver the food to the home. Once the state of emergency is lifted the town will take the activity room back, so the food shelf will eventually have to move back into their smaller space.
The school program has been funded by USDA to provide meals to children under 18 and the Shelburne Food Shelf is supplementing that program. The food shelf provides supplement groceries that wouldn’t be included in a meal, and the school adds those boxes to its delivery system. Non-food items, including restaurant gift cards, rent and water payments via checks to landlords and the water department, and Visa gift cards have been part of the program as well. Concerns are about the next three or four months. If there’s no deal in Washington, supplemental unemployment and SNAP distributions will go away, eviction and utility moratoriums will expire. New people continue to enter the food shelf program so things could get very scary.
The Board is very hands on, helping with food distribution. Shelburne is so fortunate to have such an active and dedicated group. They can always use more volunteers- many of the volunteers are nervous about the in-person shopping so it’s good to have a deep well of people to drive, shop and work at the in-person shopping. There’s an easy way to sign up using Sign Up Genius on the food shelf website.
Food shopping has been important and intensive to fill the needs of the food shelf. The Food Bank program limits the type of foods the food shelf can distribute so they can’t take home goods like home canned foods and baked goods.
There are 11 board members. The majority of members live in Shelburne or have some connection with Shelburne. The food shelf was founded originally by the three big churches in town, so they try to maintain a board seat for each of the churches. The rest of the members are at large, including a social services professional and town officials. The Board meets monthly and has a series of committees within the board- the Operations committee, Communications committee, Non-food Aid committee. The food shelf puts out an annual report which is on the website.
We’ll be donating “It’s a No Money Day,” a children’s book about a family using a food shelf to the Pierson Library.
Next week’s question- What was your favorite Christmas present of all time? Bring a mimosa or a Bloody Mary and your favorite holiday cheer suggestion!
Have a great week!
Respectfully submitted
Carrie Fenn