News

Everyone Eats food aid program ‘on pause’

By Patrick Mcardle
Staff Writer
Everyone Eats, a program that provides food for Vermonters in need by working with restaurants that prepared the meals and farms that provided the food, was “put on hold” on Thursday as organizers identify new funding sources for a program they hope will continue.

Jean Hamilton, Everyone Eats statewide coordinator for Southeastern Vermont Community Action, said the funding had come from federal CARES Act money that had been allocated to Vermont and then provided through the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to SEVCA. An early concern was that CARES funding had to be spent by the end of the year, but after a new COVID relief bill was signed last week, the deadline for spending CARES funding was extended for a year.

However, Hamilton pointed out, with the great need across Vermont, the budget already had been exhausted.

“There was a great need and we matched our budget to what we could spend before Dec. 30,” she said.

According to the organizers, as of Thursday, Everyone Eats has worked with more than 170 Vermont farms and food producers, and more than 150 restaurants and business to provide more than 500,000 meals across all 14 counties.

Organizers have been looking at ways to keep Everyone Eats going for some time, Hamilton said, but she admitted it’s a challenge.

“Not only the basic challenge of finding millions of dollars, but it has been exacerbated by the complexity of this COVID landscape and the various relief bills and funding mechanisms that sort of appear and disappear and are changing rapidly,” she said.

Hamilton said that even while conditions have changed, there have been “continued opportunities” and strong support from the hubs in various parts of Vermont that are gathering and distributing food, among members of the Legislature, and from the administration of Gov. Phil Scott.

“I’m very heartened by the number of different folks that see the opportunity for this program, and that bodes well for our opportunity to fund the program in the future,” she said.

During the pause, Casey Engels, a consultant in food systems and food security with Capstone Community Action, said those involved in Everyone Eats will be “data crunching” to assess how well the program served the community.

“There are certainly a lot of irons in the fire on this in terms of taking a peek at what happens with the stimulus and what is possible in terms of creative solutions going forward,” she said.

Engels said if Everyone Eats continues it would be “amazing” and expected to continue to receive strong support from Capstone, but she added there’s “always wonderful improvements to make as we move forward.”

Engels noted that one of the advantages of the Everyone Eats program is that SEVCA worked with local hubs so the program can be tweaked and adjusted to meet the needs of different communities.

Hamilton said Vermonters could go online to vteveryoneeats.org to watch for future updates on the program. Also, she suggested checking with the local hub that serves a particular community.

patrick.mcardle @rutlandherald.com

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