By Keith Whitcomb Jr.
Staff Writer
A popular food box program born in the pandemic has undergone a change but will continue through September.
John Sayles, chief executive officer of Vermont Foodbank, said the new Full Plates Vermont program is quite similar to the Farmers to Families Food Box program, which began in April 2020, though there’s one big change most people will notice.
Whereas the Farmers to Families Food Box program had no eligibility requirements beyond signing up for it, Full Plates does require recipients to say their household income is below 300% of the federal poverty line. Sayles said this is because the food for the Full Plates program comes from The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).
“If you’ve been going to a food shelf that distributes TEFAP food, you just have to sign a one page form and check that you certify your income eligibility,” said Sayles. Full Plates is no different.
“There’s no verification needed, you don’t have to show tax returns or pay stubs or anything,” he said.
The Farmers to Families Food Box program is a United States Department of Agriculture program, slated to halt at the end of May. Full Plates Vermont registration opens May 24, with distributions starting June 3. The new program requires a visit to vtfoodbank.org/gethelp to sign up. Those who can’t access the internet or who need help navigating the site, should call 833-670-2254. Someone from Vermont Foodbank will call back within 48 hours.
With the Farmers to Families program, one person could pick up food for multiple households. That’s still allowed, but the households receiving food still have to certify that they qualify, said Sayles.
States have some control over the financial eligibility requirements and Vermont made its purposefully broad, said Sayles.
“We know a lot of people who don’t qualify for (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits are still going to food shelves and still are not making ends meet, and so we wanted this to be more accessible to folks,” he said.
The Farmers program is still giving away all the boxes it has, he said, though the signup slots aren’t filling as fast as they once did. It’s not clear what the new eligibility requirement will do to participation levels.
“There’s always been an issue with stigma with food programs, and we really eliminated that with Farmers to Families by making it very easy,” said Sayles. “You don’t have to use your name, you just go and you sign up and pick it up, much like going to a food shelf.”
The Abbey Group, a Vermont company, has been contracted to package the food Vermont Foodbank procures, though the company is looking to be awarded a bid to do more than that, according to Nina Hansen, vice president of operations at the Abbey Group.
When the program began, after it evolved from the Vermont National Guard handing out meals-ready-to-eat, Abbey Group was awarded a bid by the USDA to supply food for the boxes. As the program went on, larger, out-of-state companies began winning the bids, to the consternation of Vermont leaders.
Hansen said the company will know by Wednesday if it’s won the bid for Full Plates Vermont.
“If we win the bid, we should see some Vermont products in that box going out to families, but it’s a pretty competitive situation and obviously the big players are in there,” she said. “We may be getting boxes from Georgia, I don’t know, but the Abbey Group is trying hard to win this bid and provide these boxes.”
Should it win the bid, it expects to hire more people to fulfill the contract, she said.
keith.whitcomb @rutlandherald.com
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