This article is part of a regular series out of Berkshire Hills Regional School District in which we share student and staff news and learning for the goal of increasing communication touchpoints between the community and its public schools.
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Editor’s note: The following was written by Sheela Clary in her capacity as a staff member of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District.
Schools in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District provide free breakfast and lunch to those low-income students who identify themselves, but when the school day is over, so is the provision of meals. Luckily, since COVID, a well-oiled machine has taken form through a collaboration between Berkshire Hills, Fairview Hospital, and local food organizations, and it has been contributing to making up the dinner difference. Their work now ensures that 75 local families, including more than 150 district students (a number that is steadily growing), receive boxes of food delivered direct to homes by a team of steady volunteers, every week. One hundred families are signed up to receive Thanksgiving dinner later this month through the program, as well.
Kate Burke came on board at the start of the 2023–2024 school year to serve as the Food Box Program coordinator for the school district. She says of meeting the school meal gap, “Some people would say, ‘That’s the family’s responsibility, rather than the school’s.’ But everything is such a struggle now for so many families. Kids can’t learn if their tummies are empty, and they’re worried. This takes some worry off the parents’ plates.” Burke’s job is to identify the gaps in food when school is not in session, to get families signed up, and to coordinate the delivery of boxes while also ensuring that privacy rules are enforced. (Volunteers do not know the names or phone numbers of the folks they are helping.)
The other essential partner in this smooth operation is Jenny Schwartz, the food access coordinator at the Southern Berkshire Rural Health Network at Fairview Hospital, who orders the food and coordinates the volunteers’ packing and details of their driving route. She started the job three months before COVID struck, getting involved when the involved BHRSD staff—first the coordinators of the district’s after-school program, then called Project Connection, followed by the food service director—“got maxed out” by the scale of the work. Schwartz now works 20 hours a week for Fairview, and 20 hours a week at Berkshire Bounty in grant-funded positions.
Why would a hospital get involved in sending food home to families? According to Doreen Hutchinson, Fairview’s vice president of operations and chief nursing officer, the mission of Berkshire Health Systems, parent company of Fairview Hospital, is “to advance health and wellness for everyone in our community in a welcoming, inclusive, and personalized environment.” She explains, “A crucial element of this work is collaborating with other organizations to address the social and economic concerns that impact the health and quality of life for the communities we serve.”
The Food Box Program was born out of the COVID pandemic, and during the worst of the pandemic, the program was unable to use BHRSD’s school buildings to collect and pack up food. Hevreh in Great Barrington offered up space during that period. In that difficult phase, the program was also forced to scale back to only delivering during holidays due to its reduced capacity. When school started up 100 percent again, the Food Box Program was able to pick up its weekly schedule. There is still some residual COVID-era funding supporting the program, as well as grants through the Gilson Foundation and Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, which amounts to $20,000 or so, and covers about one year of operations.
As for the food that comes in the weekly shipments, a box will include beans, rice or pasta, tuna, tomatoes, corn, cereal, cheese, a dozen eggs, three to five veggies, and two fruits. The shelf-stable items come from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts via People’s Pantry. Berkshire Grown serves as a sort of food intermediary for produce from local farms. Berkshire Bounty provides the eggs and cheese, and the local state-funded food-assistance program (a collaboration between Berkshire Bounty and Berkshire Grown) provides a budget for locally sourced produce to purchase wholesale through Guido’s. This produce is housed in Berkshire Grown coolers that a Berkshire Bounty volunteer delivers to the school. Grants allow them to shop for things not available in any given week at the Food Bank, such as pasta or cereal, and a large anonymous donation and grant allows them to give out meat monthly. This year, 70 Thanksgiving turkeys were donated, and there is funding through an outside source for the remainder.
There are clearly lots of official organizational entities involved in the Food Box effort, but the program would not run without its core group of half a dozen or so community volunteers. Tuesday is volunteer food-packing day, which takes place in a community room at Muddy Brook Elementary School first thing in the morning. The volunteers are mostly retired folks, says Schwartz, “the most dedicated people. Lots of retired social workers. The one who managers routes is a retired principal. One gentleman said this work is what keeps him going. He wants to do it as long as he can.” There are seven different driving routes, and boxes are delivered straight to the door.
This cohort of volunteers has grown, as friends share their experience with friends. “They enjoy doing it. Every new person stays. We’ve procured many drivers from friends of friends,” Burke says of them. “The volunteers are such a dedicated team. They’re open minded and resourceful, to make sure no one is turned away.”
Volunteers Eliza Hewat and Susan Weinberg of West Stockbridge volunteer each week for the program. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to participate in this well-run program with dedicated volunteers. Food scarcity, food insecurity is real,” says Hewat.
As for the recipient families, they sign up through school clinicians or adjustment counselors, the district family liaison, and ultimately get connected to Burke. (The Food Box Program is not aligned with the free and reduced lunch criteria, which are set by the federal government.)
“We need to know that they are accepting of the support, their address, and which door to leave the food,” says Burke. Some folks are new to the country; some are saving up for a car; some are single-parent families; some are grandparents raising their grandkids on a fixed income. Through her work, Burke has gotten front-row seats to this resort region’s real, and worsening, hunger problem. “I can’t tell you how many people tell me this program is a lifesaver. They’ll tell me, ‘My husband and I both have two jobs, and we still can’t make ends meet.’”
The Food Box Program started out serving 35 families; it is now nearing 80, and new calls come in all the time. The poverty rate is 12 percent in Berkshire Hills Regional School District, which serves 1,189 students total. “We’re not reaching all the people who need this,” Burke acknowledges. “There are definitely more families that need it.”
In anticipation of the holidays, each school is doing a food drive, but if you are inclined to help, what the Food Box Program could really use are donations of money to purchase food. “Cash donations allow us more flexibility to purchase along the lines of what people need.” In the interest of parity, Burks says, “We want to give them all similar things, gift cards to grocery stores that we can then use to purchase food.”
Gift cards, or checks made out to BHRSD with “Food Box Program” in the memo line, can be left at the front desk of the school or sent to BHRSD in care of Sharon Harrison, 50 Main Street, Stockbridge, MA 01262.
