Everyone Eats extended to April 1

By Patrick Mcardle
RUTLAND HERALD
Vermont Everyone Eats, a program that addresses food insecurity by providing a weekly meal to residents through the state, has been extended through April 1, providing an additional three months of meals from its originally scheduled conclusion at the end of this year.

Started in August 2020, Vermont Everyone Eats (VEE) was created in response to the state of emergency introduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

VEE’s statewide coordinator Jean Hamilton of Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) said the extension of the program reflects an extension of the contract between SEVCA and the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development.

Hamilton said the agency was providing money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that was budgeted to help people affected by the pandemic. She said the money was available to extend VEE due to the “extended crisis period we’re in because of COVID.”

VEE has 11 hubs which collectively provide some food program in all 14 counties of the state.

In the Upper Valley, the program is operated by the VEE hub Upper Valley Everyone Eats (UVEE), administered by Vital Communities, which partners with more than 45 Upper Valley food assistance distributors. Since September 2020, UVEE has distributed more than 147,000 meals to Upper Valley Vermonters experiencing food insecurity.

VEE is unusual because it was designed to help Vermonters who need food, and it also helps restaurants and farmers. Early in the pandemic, restaurants were contending with the loss of business as Vermonters were encouraged to stay at home to avoid spreading COVID. Local restaurants that served locally grown food were no longer buying produce, which meant the loss of an important market for local farmers.

Everyone Eats set up a program that bought meals from restaurants, many of them made using local produce, and supplied them to Vermonters who self-identified as suffering from food insecurity because of the pandemic.

Hamilton said the extension would allow most of the hubs to continue the services without interruption although some programs may make changes because of the holiday season.

For instance, the Rutland County program run by the Vermont Farmers Food Center (VFFC) will be closed Thursday and Monday but will resume with a double meal drive-thru starting at 4 p.m. Dec. 30. Participants in VEE in Rutland County can still pick up from the same area on the south side of Farmers Hall at VFFC but the distribution site will move to the white building next door on Jan. 6.

Hamilton suggested those who regularly pick up meals from their local VEE hub call 211 or check with the VEE website, at vteveryoneeats.org online, the local hub’s website or the local hub’s Facebook page.

Stephen Abatiell, a member of the VFFC Everyone Eats program staff, said via email that the center had distributed more than 190,000 meals or about 3,000 meals a week. He said the Rutland County hub has injected $1.93 million into county restaurants.

“The VEE program extension is welcome news here in Rutland County and will help families and individuals in need plan for the months ahead. We’re proud to coordinate this innovative program for Rutland County and to use this experience to help us partner with local change makers like Bowse Health Trust to continue to meet the food access needs in Rutland County,” he said.

The Bowse trust, which is affiliated with Rutland Regional Medical Center, chose the VFFC hub as one of the agencies that would receive funding for 2021.

Sue Minter, executive director of Capstone Community Action, which serves Washington, Orange and Lamoille counties, said in Central Vermont, the VEE hub has delivered 283,000 meals. Like other hubs, including Rutland County, the Central Vermont hub works with almost 50 partners to not only collect the meals and distribute them but also to deliver some to those who need them.

Minter said Capstone gets meals to unhoused Vermonters and works with the community health centers and local food shelves.

Extending VEE through the winter may also help people who are facing limited budgets and inflationary prices. People in those situations might find themselves having to make choices between necessities like heating oil and food, Minter said.

Hamilton said the volunteers and organizers working with VEE will now have an additional three months to try to “figure out ways to take the best parts of Everyone Eats forward” even beyond the duration of federal funding.

“We keep sort of waiting for COVID to end and thinking that our program may end with it, but the longer that we continue to operate, the more we see the benefit (and) how woven we’ve become into the community,” she said.

Hamilton noted that food insecurity didn’t start with the pandemic and won’t go away when the pandemic ends.

Minter said Capstone staff and contributors had already raised money to keep their food shelf supplied, but the experience of working with VEE during the pandemic had inspired efforts to keep VEE, or a program like it, active even after the pandemic.

For Capstone, this means outreach into more rural areas.

“We’re really extending beyond the normal reach so there’s many levels to what we’re now doing. That’s where we’re now creating (partnerships with) new volunteer organizations that want to be part of solving this problem in the long run. It’s not just about the money and the food, it’s about the people. Finding the people who need it and then the folks who want to help be a part of this mission,” she said.

Disclosure: Executive Editor Steven Pappas serves asCapstone Community Actionboard of directorschair.

patrick.mcardle @rutlandherald.com