Pittsfield — September is Hunger Awareness Month. Last month, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts convened a “Voices in Food Equity” panel at Berkshire Community College, bringing together representatives from local organizations working on food-related initiatives. With input from the public, the panelists shared ideas and resources to better serve the needs of those facing food insecurity in the Berkshires, and pondered logistical challenges.
“There are lots of resources out there. It’s a matter of connecting us all,” said Andrew Morehouse, executive director of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. He noted that their website, under the “Get Help” tab, has a comprehensive list and map of every food pantry and meal program by county, along with lots of other resources. The website shows that about 20,000 people a month are served in the Berkshires, with 9.6 percent of western Massachusetts residents being food insecure.
Panelist Lois Daunis, board president of the Al Nelson Friendship Center Food Pantry, envisioned a centrally located food hub with space for a large pantry, service agencies, and a meal program such as Berkshire Food Project, along with cooking classes for the community and children, especially. She recalls how during COVID a teen center in North Adams provided children with food, equipment, and Zoom lessons to prepare a meal for their family at home. “To have more of a constant presence, I think, would be very useful to our patrons.”
Daunis also noted that the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts holds a monthly Zoom meeting where member food pantries share best practices and ask for help. If people see a need, they should connect with whomever in their local organization attends those meetings and “see if somebody can fill that need.”
“When I first moved [to Williamstown] as a chef, I didn’t know the difference between food pantry and food project,” shared panelist Aaron Oster, who opened several restaurants in Williamstown and is now instructional program manager for Food, Culture, and the Local Economy at BCC. “I didn’t know where Berkshire Bounty or Berkshire Grown began and the other one ended. I wasn’t sure who was doing what and who to reach out to.”
As the panel went on, he remarked that he is hearing about some local resources for the first time, and agreed that some easily accessible network would help people get involved. “A lot of those [restaurant] owners and chefs, they really want to help, but they have so much going on.”
Oster also invites any group who needs it to use the kitchen at BCC, which he envisions being “a central hub for food education.”
South, Central, and North County each have a food-access collaborative that gathers regularly. The South County group is facilitated by Jenny Schwartz through the Southern Berkshire Rural Health Network. Schwartz, who is also the operations manager at Berkshire Bounty, told those gathered about her work since the COVID crisis to develop distribution systems for food sourced largely through Berkshire Grown. The missing piece, where the works needs to go, she said, is getting feedback from those on the receiving end of, for instance, the boxing programs in South County schools. “A lot of assumptions are made on what should go in [that] would be so simply answered if the voices were in that room and helping make these decisions.”
Stopping the stigma
A big theme of the panel discussion was reducing the stigma around food insecurity, from helping people negotiate using WIC at farmers markets to delivering food to people’s homes as some pantries are doing. “It’s very important to try to take the time and the effort to know individuals that are coming to your pantry,” said Schwartz, “or that person that may be a little bit shy about coming to a pantry, because there’s always a story behind everybody that’s coming.”
Pantries in the county don’t ask invasive questions like, “What is your income?” said Oster. “That really helps, because it’s hard enough as it is to go to a food pantry or to ask for help.” At a “feed it forward” free-meal program at the restaurant he used to have in North Adams, they did away with the tokens that proved need. “Ultimately, access to fresh, delicious food should be something that can be written into a business plan. It doesn’t have to be at the expense of the sustainability of the business.”
Daunis pointed out that many grant opportunities ask for demographic data. “We don’t choose to apply for those because that would mean putting our friends in an uncomfortable position … our primary goal is fostering a community of dignity and respect.”
A BCC social work student in the audience shared that her pantry includes recipes with the bags of foods, something she finds very helpful. “I remember my first trip to a food pantry. I was like, ‘I really don’t know how to use these canned foods. I don’t know how to make this food taste good for my young family.’” She suggested a cookbook focusing on food-pantry items, which the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts in fact has on their website.
On a similar note, Morehouse added, “We have a lot more to do in terms of procuring and sourcing culturally responsive food. It’s very expensive for very small communities, but we are dedicating more and more of our budget for purchasing culturally responsive food.”
Schwartz shared a story of holding community suppers when Great Barrington was sheltering 15 families from Haiti and Latinx communities. With the help of a fleet of vans from Greenagers, they drove to Albany to buy culturally authentic foods. “We can try hard to make these pantries as culturally appropriate as possible, but sometimes it really makes a difference to find these places and make them accessible.”
Food brings us together
“Food plays such a powerful role in everyone’s life, is such a connector between all of us,” said Oster. “We all have a story around food.”
Jessica Vecchia, executive director and cofounder of Roots Rising, spoke to the emotional and social wellbeing that comes from engaging with food. “Our teens are working with local farmers and learning about the food system and getting their hands in the soil, but we also have culinary classes so that they’re learning the full scope of the food system.” These hands-on experiences are “really empowering, and there’s a ripple effect there. Our teens take their recipes home and get to share that with their families and those recipes get to be carried on.”
She shared a story of a “very shy” recent immigrant from Liberia who resisted using farm tools, instead eventually showing the group how people farmed in Liberia and preparing a family recipe for them with sweet-potato leaves and fish.
“What’s so important is that children, all of us, that we feel seen, that we feel valued, that we feel connected. Food is a beautiful way of doing that, of bringing us together,” said Vecchia.
Oster, who worked with a Roots Rising farm crew this summer, attested, “There was a really diverse group of individuals that I think all gained a sense of their commonality, and that was success for me. They were all excited about the same thing at the same time, without having to have traveled to another country or grown up in another language, or grown up in a household that could afford things or couldn’t afford things.”
It was just, “This is fresh, and this is good. And I know where it came from, and I made it myself.”
