 Hello everyone, I'm James Milan and welcome to this episode of Million Dollar Gift, our series that focuses on the incalculable value really, we say million dollars but it could be much more than that, of volunteer energy in our community and of the organizations and other services that really rely on people donating their time and energy. One of the absolute flagship services for that here in Arlington and a very familiar treasure of our community is FoodLink and today I am joined by both Dianne Dupont who is one of the two founders of FoodLink and its program manager, Elise Springles. So thank you both of you for being here, we appreciate it and I say here but of course all of us here together virtually and in our separate and safe spaces. I wanted to basically I think much of our audience is going to be familiar already with what FoodLink is and the work that you guys do but Dianne maybe you can just give us a pretty quick synopsis of where FoodLink came from and what it is that you guys are all about. So where FoodLink came from is when the other co-founder Julie Krummer noticed that one of the local bakeries was throwing away their bread each night to make room for their fresh baked bread the next morning and she thought well that food could be collected and distributed to people in need and it started there and she asked me to join this effort and I did and then the next thing we knew we were collecting baked goods from several bakeries and within about four months we started working with Trader Joe's to collect other food including perishable food, fresh produce meat and those sorts of things and that was eight years ago and where we are now is we have six employees we have our own cargo van we work with well over 20 or 25 donor agencies under normal circumstances and we have approximately 50 recipient agencies and we're in 20 communities. That is well it's impressive I'll leave it at that you know I've talked to you about this a number of times and I'm really familiar with the history of FoodLink of course and I'm proud to have been you know part of it from from close to the beginning but surprisingly I don't think I've ever asked you how hard was it initially to get you know Trader Joe's and Panera and Whole Foods wherever it is that you got that started those you know that that flow going how hard was it to to convince these companies to to jump on board with this. Well it's interesting Trader Joe's reached out to us when they heard what we were doing they reached out to us and then once you you build on your reputation and then from there we added Whole Foods one of our volunteers connected us with Russo's and then we were doing a good job at Whole Foods Arlington so then we were asked to do Whole Foods Medford and then it just keeps growing a good bit on your reputation that you show up when you say you will and then you handle the food properly once you receive it until it gets all the way to the distribution to programs and agencies serving people in need. And Elise how much of the work that you do as program manager right now involves you know the relations with your food suppliers and you know finding new ones or or you know establishing new new connections in that way. That's a large portion of what we do we've been figuring out in the last few months on how we're going to ramp up our operations when we move to 108 Summer Street so a lot of it's been kind of the initial groundwork. It was strong relationship with the Greater Boston Food Bank who often acts as like a point person because many of the larger chain grocery chains and organizations contact them first so we they fund all folks to us which works really well but this is always kind of a balancing act of both taking on new food donors while also taking on new recipient agencies because we always want to have just a little more food than we can regularly give out so everyone gets enough and then we have access places that we can push both left so it's always this balancing act. Yeah how does that go you know I mean how can you tell how do you know you're just making your best guess or what? You know it's a little bit of a nuanced thing of being around our food every day you know it will be a Tuesday and go oh you know we had a lot today I'm going to see if next week we still have access that we're pushing to the next day and then I'm going to call those places on our wait list or we have a number of kind of one time places or places that are kind of waiting in the wings so we'll we'll call them up when we have access and if it's a consistent thing that every every Wednesday they're getting a call then it becomes something regular. Yeah that makes sense right people would or recipients recipient agencies or whatever would kind of start by getting on a wait list or taking things when you have enough and then eventually just seeing it for organically that can get to be a regular thing. I'd like to add too with the partnership with the Greater Boston Food Bank they they understand organizations like us do food rescue very well because it's usually collect and deliver the same day whereas the Greater Boston Food Bank will admit that's not where their their expertise lies because there's always an extra day lag before the food can get to agencies so the partnership is quite strong because they really support and want us to do what we're doing in order to get the food out quicker to programs. Right I would think that even if they you know their own existence is as a kind of intermediary or middle middleman between you know the the donors and the recipients they'd rather you know because it's their mission I'm sure they would rather have a you know promote a model and support a model like yours which is which cuts that out and just kind of gets things operating much more efficiently. So in general just tell us you know again pretty briefly how does how do things work for food link normally. Are you getting for instance just pick any of your any of your donors and just tell us how it would work on any given day getting and then distributing to any of your recipients. So let's say we're working with Whole Foods on a particular day and generally we would have two collections one at 10 from Whole Foods Medford and one at noon from Whole Foods Arlington and the volunteer team that shows up at Whole Foods Medford knows where it's going to for the most part and they will collect the food sort it and by sorting they're sorting to get some of the to get the bad food out by bad it could be a moldy lemon or a very bruised apple so that what we distribute is the nicer and intact fruit and veggies and that sort of thing we also checking it for food safety and so then we from there will generally from Whole Foods Medford we would have a delivery perhaps to Bunker Hill Community College perhaps one to Medford Senior Center one to the Mystic Community Market and the Arlington Boys and Girls Club Fidelity House is probably about six or seven distributions from Whole Foods Medford and then anything that's not distributed and our volunteers will pack it in their cars and they're usually at their destination within 15 minutes so that the food is staying in the safe zone during that period and then the van will then go to Whole Foods Arlington and repeat what we did at Whole Foods Medford and then deliver it to the various organizations some places get more than one delivery in a day as well depending upon what's going on and what you've received for for that and Elise are there any foods types of food that you are particularly looking for at any given time or also that you absolutely you know are not going to take I mean really the only thing we don't take is food that is not safe but even you know we'll get some things that are just like a little too bruised to feel that we don't feel like we can give to our receiving agencies but our volunteers take those home and are happy to make applesauce and things like that but we particularly like dealing with fresh or foods fresh produce dairy meats because those are the foods that many of these agencies have gone toward giving out because they are the healthier foods we get a lot of bread and baked goods as well and everyone's always happy to get a nice cake from Whole Foods and we're excited to give those out in our own ways but our preference is to go for the fresh and healthy foods and are there recipient agencies that are really or recipients that are that are really only either interested in or can only accept because of who they are certain kinds of food yeah we work really hard to tailor the deliveries to the needs of the agency so for example we work with some agencies that have no refrigeration available for storage so we might be tailoring the delivery to be things that can be held at room temperature like fruit vegetables or non-perishables or we might be delivering kind of the moment before their distribution happens so that we can bring some refrigerated items for them we also are often talking to agencies about getting culturally appropriate foods Arlington Eats Market for example has a large portion of of customers who are Asian and being able to give them something like bok choy really makes folks stay yeah it's uh I think that one of the things that we have are managing to accomplish in this conversation is giving people a better sense of again I mentioned it to be outset that everybody's familiar with food link and I really think that's true and they know in a general sense they could give a one-sentence description of what you guys are doing but I think what's being what what I'm even finding out for myself here is just how many things you have to take a new account and how many complicating factors there are in what in what it is that you guys are doing on a daily basis how far you know dn you were mentioning that you're working in would you say I think you said 20 communities how how far is the geographical scope is your geographical reach so we deliver as far north as Lowell and Lawrence and then we do work with a program in south boston that collects from us they come to us and we do have a program in Attleboro Attleboro that come to us for the food because we that's beyond our general distribution area and we go we don't go that much much further west but in wall fam and uh Lexington is what we do on the western side so we're fairly broad rain yeah I mean it sounds like you guys are really operating within the far stretches in a lot of ways of the boston metropolitan area or what we would think of that way but not for instance western mass or you know into other parts of new england or anything like that yet that is correct I shouldn't say yet I so I want to segue I want to bring us a closer now I think people have a sense of of how things operate normally of course nothing is normal um at the moment is everybody is well aware so what I'd like to do is find out from you you know what are the biggest changes that you have that you know the biggest impact that the pandemic has had on your operations and also get your own sense of we've had the privilege of speaking recently to uh folks from project bread from Arlington eats from the council on aging we know that there's a lot of collaboration going on here in town in order to provide food and other kinds of services and needs uh to vulnerable populations in Arlington and beyond and we know that you guys are playing a big part so feel free to tackle this from any angle you want but you know what are the impacts on you guys um and and how you do things and also what is the nature of the collaborating that you're doing with other agencies um so yeah as you said this has affected everything um the COVID-19 outbreak has most certainly affected the ways we are working we are still doing our basic mission of rescuing food nourishing community or at least our tagline of doing that um but uh it has affected as I was talking before talking about kind of that balancing act that we have of having enough food enough agencies it's affected both sides of that scale so um we've seen our food supply kind of do this like wave motion throughout this where um you know when the grocery stores started selling out our donations went way down and then when the schools and restaurants closed we got an influx of donations from them and they went way up so when we were looking back at March we actually discovered that if we look at our regular set of um pickups in March it was our smallest month in two years but if you take it as a whole and include all these one-time donations or new donors that we are getting working with um wholesale distributors uh restaurants and schools as I mentioned um in other places it was our largest month ever uh so on that end things have changed and then on the other end the places we take food has changed D.M. was mentioning before places like the Medford Senior Center or the Arlington Boys and Girls Club both of those agencies are closed due to the virus uh while many of the food pantries we work with have um up the ante and are doing more than ever and new food pantries that we've never worked with are looking for more food um we are also doing work with uh grassroots organizations places that are less formal than we've worked with in the past um that are doing great jobs of just getting food to folks of mutual organizations um so those are some of the things um but then the the kind of third piece is that food and security is expanding in Massachusetts uh Project Bread reported this past week that it's up to 38% of the population and it's normally 9% so that is a significant increase in a small period of time and it's not something that will just change when the stay at home order is lifted. Yeah and what I'm sure you have also noted some things D.M. yeah yeah so so one of the things too is we're trying to do what we're doing uh our throughput has increased about 75% or so and we're trying to do this with social distancing and we reduce the number of volunteers in order to ensure more social distancing so we've been working extremely hard to get the food so that it doesn't get wasted and then getting it to organizations serving people in need so if you think about you know expanding by 75% literally overnight the throughput of food reducing the number of volunteers people and incorporating social distancing and cleaning our facility several times a day it's become a a big project and process to do this but we've managed it successfully which we always call ourselves nimble and I think we're demonstrating that nimbleness during this this period during this crisis. Oh boy I I think nimble is a fabulous word to describe you know both the organization and what is required right now because as as Elise was already outlining that I'm sure it was a dramatic kind of flow and ebb you know throughout March and those just that that combination of you know smallest number and largest number in the same space of time is you know that's crazy so I know also though that in talking to the Arlington Eats organization recently they of course switch their model so that they're doing all home delivery and that and they also have fewer volunteers because of the nature of maintaining everybody's safety and health and safety. How is it working for you guys are the volunteers that you have taking more shifts basically? How are you managing to thread that needle? Yeah so part of what we've done is we've instituted a cohort model for our staff and volunteers so we have three distinct teams that we named after vegetables because that's what we do so we have team carrot banana and apple avocado goodness I should know my teams avocado banana and carrot but each volunteer is assigned to a team and there are certain days of the week each team has so that we don't have kind of cross-contamination in case one team there is any infection on but we've reduced the number of volunteers on each of our shifts we used to have some very large shifts that were had six or seven people doing them and now we do it with about three but this is okay in the ways that as I mentioned the donations from our from our grocery stores are down and those take those are take more sorting and because we have we tend to be now working with agencies that are doing larger volume instead of sorting for six locations we're sorting for one or two um so that's been able to help us streamline some things but our volunteers are working really hard we have people who are jumping on left and right um to help out so it we really couldn't do it if it wasn't for the generosity of all of these folks at the moment and and and how are you needing to because I'm sure you don't want to but how are you needing to restrict uh your volunteers what what are the criteria uh by which you are deciding hey you can take somebody on who's who's wanting to get involved for the first time or you know having that maybe difficult conversation or communication with some you know with folks to say you know we can't use your help right now yeah um in the first uh few weeks of this we actually decided to not take on new volunteers um and that was a decision made because we needed to figure out um how we could even manage the volunteers we were doing safely so we spent time coming up with safety protocols and waivers that folks are signing um a policy around quarantining the folks get sick a notification policy once we got those in place we started reopening it um but it's it is a a bit of there's so many folks who want to volunteer which is great um but we don't really have room necessarily for everyone so we're trying to find um small ways to get people involved now so that as different folks can no longer volunteer we can bring in new people um so our volunteer coordinator Alex has been hard at work on kind of making balancing that uh the big thing though is we encourage all of our volunteers to really take stock of if they or someone that they regularly interact with is considered high risk um we we trust them to make those decisions but we consistently um reinforce that to make the decision not to be volunteering right now to stay at home is actually um one of the kindest and best things you can do service right right yeah it's that's a tough one right because people really do want to do something we all want to do something and you guys are you know high profile um around here as a as a place you know if somebody was sitting around not having you know either had the time or the energy or the ability to come to contribute to their community uh until now and the circumstances are fine and they're feeling good um you know I'll bet that food links gonna be one of the first places that they call um so that's a again uh you were mentioning the end of word nimble and and I think you also are demonstrating it in that context as well what you're really having just as you were saying at least just now um you know keep keeps folks have some folks on the on the on the bench there who are have something to do until they have an opportunity to do more than that um and uh again it's it all sounds like a very delicate balancing act while you're moving fast you know um so well done um quickly what I mean you just touched on a couple of things at least but I am sure that people who are tuning in um are interested to know what they can do or what can be done for help and what it is that you guys could use if anything um from folks who might be watching so are there any answers to that so so um there's several things that we've directed people um as possibilities one is making um face masks cough face masks and Laura's sewing school has a very good video on making sewing and making these masks and sewing them and what I've told folks or asked folks that if you don't so find a buddy who does so and you can cut the fabric and they can do the sewing and make it a team effort so that's one way on our website we have a list of cleaning supplies that we could utilize and other items some this may sound simple but paper bags so that we have a place where they go and they they're quarantined where people drop them off all these items and they're the quarantine for five days before they're put to use because the distributions now nobody has choice panties they have to pack the the bags up so we're collecting some for Arlington Eats and other programs that we're working with so that's one way to help so where where could people or where should people drop that kind of thing off yep so there's two set times and a set location at High Rock Church on Mass Ave but it's not just drop it off because if it's dropped off randomly we will not accept it it'll end up getting um uh uh disposed of but if they go on our website it gives the the information that's needed it's a Monday from quarter five and Fridays from noon to one but there's a very specific location that they need to be brought to and just dropped off and there's a table it's obvious people just drop it so there's little interaction and then somebody pops out every like 10 minutes to see what has come and then they they bring it inside for quarantine and we're requiring people to label everything that they've given us with their name email address and phone number because we need to ensure that it's a decent quality anything by folks giving us this information and if we're getting like a bag bags that were somebody's basement in their moldy and stuff that we cannot use those and that way we it yeah if you need let's if you need to follow up for whatever reason then you'll have a chance to do that well it sounds like a lot of the information that you would want people to know if they want to be helpful is available on the website is accessible so just remind us again what the website is it's www.foodlinkma.org so no it's food link ma straight through straight through all right great and at least i just wanted to you don't have to but i just wanted to give you an opportunity also to respond to that you know what can people do to help yeah um i think dan covered some very immediate things folks can do i think also spreading the word right now um and kind of raising awareness of some of the work we're doing and some other folks are doing on food and security is really important um as i mentioned before uh food and security is growing increasingly here um and i'm personally very concerned about folks knowing how to access um food resources during this time in the emergency food system especially folks who have never had to do that and that it's a there is a lot of stigma around going to a food pantry or asking for help um so i think if we can start spreading the word that that is not something you should feel bad about right now we all could use a little generosity and kindness um in this time i think that goes a really far away um so talk about what we're doing and talk about what our partners are doing would be one of the big things i'd point to and also donate um we could certainly use financial assistance during this time there is probably no time in which that wouldn't be and um and and clearly i think and people have figured it out because you know food link is not just a popular but i think a well supported uh resource here in town and that is not to say again that there isn't you know use for more money to come in at all times but i am i'm glad personally to know how many people are both aware of the organization and supportive in some direct way of it so my last question is um is that i'm wondering how the changes that have been brought about because of the of COVID-19 the changes to the way that you you know perform um your operations um i'm wondering if there's anything in there that you've had to do simply in the face of this that you have found is going to be useful enough or uh in some way you you want to take into the future when we get assuming we do to the other side of this um i can start on that one uh there's there's a lot we're learning about the work we do in this time and i think one of the biggest things is working with wholesale distributors um we have been really excited about that prospect for a long time that's one of the the things we're planning to do in our new building at 108 summer street is be able to work with trucking companies wholesalers when they have excess product which is something we do on a small we were doing on a small scale we are now doing that on a very large scale and building those relationships is going to be invaluable for our future um and it's we're learning a lot about it and a lot about how um our inventory management goes um with that because this is stuff that we often have a longer shuffle on which is um really great it makes our lives a little bit easier but it's a different thing than we've had to do before so i had to keep doing that and i'll add to that is that one of the things that we've been investigating auxiliary cold storage and how that might look like because if this were to happen again we'd be able to pivot even that much faster to get even more cold storage because even though we'll have 300 square feet of cold storage in our space at summer street that would not be that would not have been enough in the several weeks ago and so one of the things is that being innovative on accessing cold storage so that you can have the capability to collect this food and often it can wait a week when it's coming from warehouses and so then you can store it and then very thoughtfully distribute it to many organizations and helping many different people yeah i think it's you know it's a wonderful thing dn that you guys are thinking uh not only about you know again once normal operations resume how you can you know put into practice the lessons you've learned but also the next time something like this happens you know that you're actually also thinking realizing how important what you do is in times of emergency and in an emergency that none of us could ever have imagined i think we all would agree with that it turns out that food link is absolutely pivotal and the work that you do is more important than ever we have spoken in recent weeks with a lot of people about the fact that the pandemic and the response to it has in a lot of ways exacerbated existing inequities in our society it is good to know i think also that it also has exaggerated the importance of really great service organizations such as yourselves you know on the on the bright side we know that there's a lot of darkness that we're all dealing with now so it's it's it's nice to to come up with some silver linings in there as well i want to thank you both and just invite you quickly if there is anything that we haven't covered that you feel like we should should be mentioned i just wanted to give an open invitation to bring that up before we sign off there's one thing i'd like to bring up is the number of people that we touch on regular terms it's about 20 000 over 20 000 people that are touched through the programs we serve and Elise could probably talk to this more but i suspect even though we're not serving a particular group because many of these places have closed we have opened us up to many other places and i suspect that number is similar and one other thing i'd like to to mention as well is that we're working with a couple of programs that are that we are going we're seeking assistance from and they're making it very easy for us and then i realize how we get a reaction when a new agency wants to come on board or get food that we make it very simple for them and i often they're surprised at how simple we make it and i'm understanding now their feeling of how we make it simple for them because some of these organizations that we're working with to provide us some services have been similar and it's been such a relief because we have also talked to several places that has not been easy to work with and put up a lot of roadblocks so i understand now why these recipient agencies just they like sort of relax and they go that's all we have to do to start working with you and we say yes that's it yeah it's again you know one more piece of good news as i was saying which has been uh in all too short supply um recently but that's that's great um lease anything to add or yeah um i will uh kind of echo dianne we are i know we're doing well over what we normally do um as far as folks serve because one agency that we're working with the mystic community market opened just a few weeks maybe a month before this all occurred um is currently serving 20 000 individuals which is just mind boggling um but the last thing i would add is it's actually volunteer appreciation week um while we're recording this and i just want to say thank you to our volunteers and to the folks who are volunteering um throughout the area right now working on these issues i know that um despite how dark these times are i don't actually have a lot of room to sit in that that darkness because i am surrounded by these people who are just giving so freely of their time and energy and love to one another so i just have to say thank you to our volunteers while i'm on this well what a fabulous way to end an episode of million dollar gift um i couldn't have said it better and i won't try um thank you so much alise springle and dn dupont from food link um remember go to their website find out what it is that they could use help out as best you can but everybody just stay safe guys continue the excellent work that you're doing we appreciate it so much and i'm sure we'll talk to you again when things are back to normal um so best of luck until then stay safe and healthy i'm james melanne you've been watching million dollar gift we'll see you next time thank you