Published September 7, 2021
New Farm Box Initiative Seeks to Expand Hunger-Relief Services to More Waldo County Residents
This week marks the launch of the Farm Box 2021 Pilot, an initiative that aims to serve people at 100-189% of the federal poverty level, a population that is often ineligible for federal hunger-relief through food pantry services. The Farm Box 2021 Pilot is the result of a partnership between Waldo County Bounty, Daybreak Growers Alliance, and Belfast Soup Kitchen.
“The complementary Farm Boxes are meant to assist working families that fall between the cracks,” says Cherie Merrill, Belfast Soup Kitchen executive director. “From my work at WaldoCAP, which has qualification guidelines, as do all public assistance programs, I saw families that needed assistance but did not qualify for it.”
An example of the locally grown produce inside a Farm Box. Photo credit: Belfast Soup Kitchen
Waldo County Bounty is providing evaluation materials and $15,000 to fund the program, and Daybreak Growers Alliance will aggregate, pack, and ship farm boxes full of high-priority, high-nutrition, high-value produce. The Belfast Soup Kitchen will distribute the farm boxes through their “pick up and go” programming, which provides fresh ingredients for people to prepare meals at home. The boxes are available to residents across Waldo County, not only those living in Belfast. To reserve a box, residents may email info@belfastsoupkitchen.org, call (207)338-4845, or send the soup kitchen a message via its Facebook page.
“The Belfast Soup Kitchen does not and has never asked for qualifying information,” says Merrill. “If you are in need, we will help you.”
We are delighted to be able to support this important work by our hunger-relief partners, who first identified the gap in hunger-relief services in our area. Colleen Hanlon-Smith, co-owner of Daybreak Growers Alliance and Farm-to-Pantry contractor for Waldo County Bounty, pioneered the Farm Box project. After testing it out for two weeks and receiving favorable feedback from Merrill and clients at the Belfast Soup Kitchen, she brought the initiative to Waldo County Bounty.
The Farm Box Pilot also aims to support people who may be at risk of descending into further food insecurity by helping them to supplement their food budget, at least temporarily.
“How do we think about all of the people in our community who maybe aren’t eligible for SNAP, or had their SNAP dollars reduced?” says Hanlon-Smith, referring to the Maine Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). “People are working very hard and still living paycheck to paycheck. What do we do to help these people, who do not qualify for federal funding, stay afloat?”
Launched on September 7, 2021, the Farm Box Pilot will run three months. At its completion, we and our partners will assess its impact to determine whether to continue the program as well as how it will be structured.
