Boston's Office of Food Justice (OFJ) is stepping up its efforts to tackle food insecurity by disbursing $500,000 in grants from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to enhance cold storage and food distribution in neighborhoods dealing with high food insecurity rates. The funding, part of the Healthy Food Access through Cold Storage initiative, aims to boost the city's food recovery capabilities between January 2025 and December 2026, according to an article published by the Boston government's official site.
The Centre for Faith, Art & Justice, a unique benefactor of this program, acquired a refrigerated electric cargo van using these funds, which augmented its ability to redistribute food by 40%. With the new vehicle, the organization has expanded its offerings, including fresh food distribution to two Boston Public Schools and boosted its food recovery from the New England Produce Center and Haymarket's outdoor market. "The van is instrumental in getting food. The refrigeration factor is wonderful. The quality of the food is better. And with what’s going on with Federal and State challenges, the recovery of food is so critical," Linda Karpeichik, Director of the Centre Food Justice Program, told the Boston government's official site.
Addressing a critical gap in food distribution, the van doubles as a mobile cold storage unit, making operations less labor-intensive and increasing the program's single-trip food procurement and distribution capacity threefold. The Centre for Faith, Art & Justice leverages both recovered and donated food to fuel its community pantry, market, and commissary kitchen which serves around 85,000 lbs of food monthly, an increase from 50,000 lbs before the van's introduction.
The Centre Food Hub, part of the Food Justice Program situated at 3702 Washington Street, provides groceries to 450 households and, thanks to the new van, has been able to include more fresh produce in pantry boxes and extend store hours by 7 additional weekly hours. "With more fresh food available, especially through our partnership with Haymarket, we have been able to regularly move pantry recipients off the waitlist gradually adding 100 families to our food pantry program," Kym Barboza-Owens, Food Justice Coordinator at The Centre for Faith, Art & Justice, stated in an interview with the Boston government's official site.
Looking to the future, The Centre for Faith, Art & Justice is working on securing access to a collaborative food storage hub in Roxbury, which would further bolster its capacity to recover and distribute food. Furthermore, OFJ will track the influence of these initiatives on food insecurity in Boston, focusing on both the amount of food distributed and the number of residents aided. These measures will also serve to better understand the environmental benefits of reducing food waste and thereby the city's overall greenhouse gas emissions.
