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A Q&A With the Sudbury Community Food Pantry
1 — Many people have heard about the Food Pantry, but some may not know its history. Can you tell us about your mission and how the Food Pantry has developed over the years?
The core mission of the Sudbury Community Food Pantry (SCFP) is to serve people who are struggling financially by providing them with food and personal care items that promote healthy living and doing so in a manner that preserves their dignity.
The Pantry merged from the 1990 recession that caused significant unemployment. Some parishioners at Our Lady of Fatima Parish looked to the church for assistance for food. The church responded by purchasing some basic staples such as pasta, tomato products, canned vegetables and canned fruit. Our Lady of Fatima parishioner and Sudbury resident Ed Gottman and Sister Mary McManus approached the pastor and suggested the church start a pantry to meet parishioner’s needs. They asked members of the congregation to bring food to the Mass to stock the Pantry. When other ministers and rabbis within the town’s Clergy Counsel became aware of the Pantry, they offered to support it, both with food drives and financial collections. This opened the Pantry to any local resident needing food assistance and in 1993, the Pantry became an independent registered 501(c)(3) organization. Today, the Pantry is an all-volunteer operation, staffed by about 100 workers of all ages and religious affiliations.
2 — What are some of the challenges you are trying to address today? How have the needs of the community evolved in the years since Covid-19?
The pandemic and resulting economic instability caused an unprecedented need for food assistance across the country and in our own backyard. Rising food prices and supply chain disruptions affected all residents, in particular, those families who are economically distressed and unable to dip into their wallets to pay the additional cost necessary to put food on the table.
Visits to the Pantry have increased for the 5th year in a row (up 38.5% over 2021). In 2022, the Pantry was visited by 969 families and 428 of those families were new clients to the Pantry. This resulted in 5,663 visits to the Pantry. Upon arrival at the Pantry, families are given a checklist to choose which items they would like to have that week. Choices include type of meat, produce, eggs, cheese, bread, prepared foods and all manner of dry goods. Clients are given an allotment of food based on family size. On average, our clients received 5.3 bags of food per visit totaling 30,450 bags of food distributed in 2022.
3 — What’s something most people don’t know about the Sudbury Community Food Pantry? Is there anything unique about your organization relative to other similar organizations?
Most similar-sized pantries in the Greater Boston area utilize paid staff to manage the day-to-day operations of their organization. SCFP staff and board members all serve as volunteers. We have no paid staff.. As such, cash donations to the Pantry are spent directly on food/services and basic operating costs such as rent and utilities.
4 — Food insecurity is a well-known and widespread problem, but some might be surprised to learn about the level of need in our area. Can you give readers a sense of the depth and breadth of food insecurity in and around Sudbury?
In 2022, we served clients from 73 different towns in Massachusetts. The majority of our clients (69%) are from Sudbury or the immediately adjacent towns and many are senior citizens and children.
While many would consider Sudbury an affluent community, the town has 775 units of housing, or 11.88% of total units, that are counted as “affordable” by the state. This includes 297 market rate units allowed for rental projects where at least 20%-25% are affordable.
5 — Food insecurity can lead to secondary and tertiary impacts on families. Can you talk about the range of ways that food insecurity can impact the lives of community members?
Food insecurity can cause serious health issues when people have to decide whether to spend money on food or on medications and healthcare. If you are food insecure you need to make very difficult decisions on whether to pay for heat and utilities or purchase food to feed your family. Studies have shown that children who do not have food to eat at home have difficulty learning in school as they are overwhelmed with worries about when they will be able to eat again. There is a great amount of research that shows that all of these various concerns around food insecurity can lead to depression and anxiety in many cases.
6 — What’s next for the Sudbury Community Food Pantry, and what are the best ways for the community to support your work?
We are always in need of more volunteers. As our number of clients keeps growing, so does the workload and it takes many people and hours to run the Sudbury Food Pantry.
We are actively looking for a new larger space that would allow for our clients to come back inside for “choice” shopping and enable us to serve our growing client numbers. We need more storage space as well as more refrigerator and freezer space. We also would like to be open more hours to better serve our working clients.
Lastly, we are always in need of monetary donations. As you can imagine, it requires a great deal of money to purchase food, pay rent/utilities and to pay for capital expenditures.
7 — Anything else to add? What didn’t we ask that we should have?
The Pantry is staffed by a diverse group of positive-minded individuals committed to helping their less-fortunate neighbors overcome food insecurity. If you would like to volunteer, we can promise a rewarding experience working alongside a terrific group of people!
We would also like to thank all the Sudbury residents and organizations in and around town who support the Sudbury Community Food Pantry year after year. It truly takes a village and we couldn’t do it without your support!