 Welcome to Million Dollar Gift. I'm James Milan. Today I am talking to the executive director of Arlington Eats. Andy Dome. Andy, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. As you might know, Million Dollar Gift focuses basically on the, you know, almost uncalculable benefit that our community derives here in Arlington from volunteer energy of all sorts. And of course your organization is an excellent example of that. Just tell us a little bit, just to start out, tell us a little bit about, you know, the history and the operations of Arlington Eats. Yeah, so Arlington Eats has a very long history with the community. It actually originally started back in 1991 as the Arlington Food Pantry. So there was a group of churches and town leaders who got together realizing that there was hunger in the community that often was unnoticed. And so they said, you know what, let's do a food pantry and see what happens. And they were surprised at how many people showed up. So the food pantry went forward and was in existence and at Church of Our Savior for I want to say 26 years. The math may be a little off there, but a long time they were operating a long time at Church of Our Savior. And at that time the town was organizing and overseeing the food pantry at the time and realized that this need in Arlington in terms of hunger was not going away and that it was just growing. And so they really felt like we need to have a more robust response to it and have a more organization behind it. So I was actually hired as the first executive director of the Arlington Food Pantry five years ago. At the same time, back in 2014, there was a group of parents who were noticing that some of their some of their kids's friends were going without lunches in the summer. So we know that there are 650 kids on free and reduced price lunches in Arlington. And if summer school's not in session over the summer, they're missing out on that lunch and sometimes even breakfast. So this group of parents got together and around a kitchen table and just started planning what they could do to address this need. And so they started making sandwiches back in 2014 and started a summer lunch program, which expanded to a vacation lunch program and snack program and various things. And so that group was originally called Arlington Eats. And they, as the food pantry was starting to get off the ground and become actually its own nonprofit, Arlington Eats was going through the same thing. And so we had already been working together really well. And we had similar missions. So we decided as the food pantry in Arlington Eats that we'd be best for the community if we joined forces and became one organization. So in 2017, the Arlington Food Pantry and the original Arlington Eats merged into one organization. And then we actually rebranded the name of the entire organization as Arlington Eats in 2019. And our tagline really is about neighbors serving neighbors. So we see ourselves as an organization where the community are coming together, neighbors are coming together and serving their neighbors. And that can mean a lot of things that can mean serving in terms of food, or it can mean serving in terms of developing community and relationships. And a lot of times you don't know which neighbor's which. And that's what we love about our organization. Yeah, and clearly the very roots of the organization, as you've just described it, this gathering of parents who noticed an issue that needed to be addressed and then wanted to do something about it, that goes right to the heart of what you're saying neighbors, healthy neighbors. I am struck and I just wanted to make note of the fact that you mentioned that there are 650 students in the Arlington Schools who are free and reduced lunch program. That is a significant portion of our student population. I'm not sure if most Arlington, most Arlingtonians realize just how high a proportion is represented there. Yeah, it's really interesting that we have that many people, many kids that are on free and reduced price lunches. And we actually know as the community as a whole has 3,500 food insecure individuals. So I think a lot of times hunger is hidden in Arlington. We see million dollar homes, we have great schools, people are flocking to live in Arlington. But we have many of our neighbors that are struggling paycheck to paycheck and something like a medical issue or a job loss or a pandemic can put people in a situation where now they're doing having decide, do I pay my rent for a mortgage or do I get groceries this month? So we're seeing that more and more of course in the current situation. Yeah, and again, I think that this is eyeopening. Most likely I've been living here in Arlington for 25 years. I've been generally aware of this of course. And but I think it is an eye opening fact as we move forward. So tell us what you know what I think people have an understanding or a general sense of what how a food pantry operates. But let us know a little bit more about just the operations day to day, again, under mostly normal circumstances, that that that our needs employees. Yeah, so we actually call our food pantry the market the Arlington needs market as a way to kind of provide a dignified name. I mean, we all have connotations of what a food pantry looks like. And we want people to know that we're not your typical food pantry. So when you come to us and we're the markets currently located at St. John's Church on Pleasant Street. So when you come to us under normal circumstances, you will be astonished at the amount of food that you're given and the variety. So we are 100% choice pantry. So you're not given a bag of food in normal circumstances, you're able to pick exactly what you want. So we do have the typical shelf stable foods of peanut butter pasta tuna, canned fruit, canned vegetables, those kind of things. But we also pride ourselves on being able to offer so much more than that. So we do. We have eggs, typically every week, we have some kind of dairy products, whether it's cheese, yogurt, butter, those kind of things. We also have several meat selections. So we provide fish, beef, pork, chicken, different options for folks. And we have a wide spread of fresh produce. So it's funny how every time we've kind of redone our program or thought through things, we said, okay, this is how much produce we want to give out. And we built furniture or we have enough tables for it. And then we just keep adding and adding and adding. Because who doesn't want fresh produce? So that's kind of what someone would experience when they come through that they would go through and they'd be able to choose what they want. We do tailor a little bit towards family size. So a family of one to two is going to get a smaller amount than a family of four to six, of course. Yeah. In a recent conversation, we were having kind of looking at the distinction between people availing themselves of a food pantry or the market in this case versus saying enrolling in the SNAP program. One of the virtues that was pointed out by our interviewee about the SNAP program as far as a lot of people are concerned is just that it creates, it gives people the means to then have them make their own choices about what food they're going to get. But it sounds like you guys are doing, you know, moving quite far in that direction yourselves in terms of, again, having letting people choose from a good variety of foods. What it is that they will be taking away with them. Yeah. And we really encourage people also to sign up for SNAP as well. I mean, those SNAP dollars can go so much further for folks. And to be able to shop at your own local grocery store, I mean, there's just something great about that. So we want people to see us not as replacement, but rather a supplement. You know, when food pantries were first started, it was like, okay, this is the emergency response. People are going to need us for a short period of time. That's not the case. We have people that have been coming to our market or food pantry for five, 10 years. And we know that a lot of folks, you know, their economic situation may not change. If they're a senior on a fixed income, that's probably not going to change with any kind of job situation. So we see ourselves as a mainstay for a lot of people, but we certainly want people to get connected to other resources as well. And do you find that you're, you know, the clientele, especially those who, as you say, you've seen coming in over a period of years, is that demographically kind of across the spectrum? Or do you have some, you know, like cater to particular populations more, as you've noticed? So about 30% of the folks we see are seniors. So we see quite a few seniors, but we are seeing a lot of families as well that are coming through. And again, it just depends on someone's individual circumstance, whether how long, again, we have people that come to us once or twice because of an economic bind, but then there's other folks that are, you know, use us frequently for many years. And just to take a step back for a second and look at the organization on an organizational level, Arlington Eats is a non-profit ISC. And is it run, what is the role of the town in terms of running Arlington Eats? Yeah, so the town used to kind of be, I would say the fiscal sponsor for the Arlington Food Pantry, but in 2017 when we became a non-profit, we were no longer the fiscal agent, or the town was no longer the fiscal agent for the food pantry, became our own entity. The town is of course, very supportive, and especially in the COVID-19 days, we've been really working closely with the Board of Health and Council on Aging. But in terms of we don't get any regular funding from the town or anything like that, it's just support. Great. And speaking of support and, you know, where things are coming from, and again, reminding our viewers that you are watching Million Dollar Gift, what is the percentage, roughly speaking, of employees versus volunteers who are making the work of Arlington Eats happen? We are definitely a volunteer organization. So we have three staff members, and I can't remember how many FTEs. It's like 2.5 full-time equivalents, so we're full staff. And we have well over 100 volunteers that come and serve with us. Some volunteers are just doing it once or twice because of, you know, their availability, but others we see them coming every single week and making sure they're helping to unload our truck, or they're making sure they serve the lunches, or they're helping people make their decisions and choices at the market. So we are very much the heart of who Arlington Eats is within our volunteer corps. And of course, we are right now still talking about how things operate normally. I'm going to be interested to find out what effect on the number of volunteers you can count on coming, you know, coming in each day, you know, what the effect of that has been. But just a couple more questions about your normal operations before we go, or before we move on to the next topic. I'm wondering, the folks who are coming in, is this mainly or exclusively for Arlington residents? Do people, can people just drop in? Do you have to fill out some kind of application? How does that happen? Yeah, so we are restricted to Arlington residents. We're very much an Arlington organization, so we have that restriction in place. But we don't require any income information. We don't verify income, anything like that. We figure if people need to come to us, they need to come to us. On our website, ArlingtonEats.org, we do have our application on there. So it's a very simple application just so we can understand the family size, how people are in your household, and your food allergies and preferences and things like that. So it's a pretty simple application that we have people fill out. And they can either do it ahead of time, again, go into our website, or they can do it the first time they show up. There's no pre-screening, anything like that happens. And are you able to accommodate either in that application process or with counselors or anything like that, like non-native English speakers? Do you cover other languages as well? We do. So we have seen a growing Mandarin-speaking population over the last several years. And so we actually have several volunteers who are on-site to be able to translate for us and interpret for us. The other languages that we see are Russian and Greek and Arab in French. We don't always have a translator right on-site at that moment. But we do try to make sure all of our signs and everything like that are translated. And if we need someone, they're always a phone call away to be able to translate for us. That's great. I'm wondering, you know, we've been talking a lot about what you do to get the food out to those in need. Where does food come from? And does that change at different times of the year? In the summer, do you work with farmer markets or anything like that? How does that part of the puzzle work? Yeah, so I would say 40% of the food that we get comes from the Greater Boston Food Bank. So we became a member of them back in 2014. And it's really a great partnership. We can buy food through them for about 27 cents per pound. So you're not going to be able to go to the average grocery store to get that. So we get a lot of our staple items from them. A lot of our produce comes from them as well as meat and eggs and all those kind of things. I would say another 30%. I'm going to get stuck on my percents because I'm probably not adding them up, right? But another 30% actually comes... I left my calculator back in my backpack. We're good. Good. So I think another 30% actually comes from donations from the community. So again, Arlington Eats is such a strong community-focused organization that we pride ourselves on getting a lot of our food donations from the community. And so, which also allows itself to have more variety to folks. So there's only certain items we can get from the Greater Boston Food Bank, you know, in terms of cereal. There's only one brand of cereal we can get. But, you know, our volunteers and their community can bring in other additional items so that we can have a variety. And we also rely heavily on Food Link. So they're another Arlington-based organization that does food rescue. So they rescue food from places like grocery stores and restaurants and then bring them to us to distribute to folks. And then in the summertime, we have a great partnership with an organization called Boston Area Gleaners. So they're unique where they have volunteers go out to the field and harvest food that's going to be left behind and then bring it to us. And you know, sometimes we even have dirt that's still on the potatoes and the carrots that come through. And it's just like the most fresh, gorgeous produce we get. So those are kind of the main ways we get our food. Yeah. So we are, you know, of course here at Million Dollar Gift, as you might imagine, very familiar with Food Link and Bag as well and Boston Area Gleaners as well. And just wonderful to hear that that collaboration goes on all the time. We do know, and this is going to segue us into talking about how you guys are operating and what the impact has been and the current situation on your operations. But we do know that one of the great bright spots, one of the silver linings and what is going on is that our organizations as well as individuals have tried to figure out how to leverage working together to be able to increase and expand the services and goods that they can offer to those in need. How does that work with Food Link, local restaurants, Boston Area Gleaners, etc. Who else have you added now as partners that you're working with under the current circumstances? How are the existing collaborators, you know, your existing collaborations doing, just speak to that for a bit, please. Yeah. So when we first got wind that COVID-19 would be a thing here in the Boston Area or the United States, we reached out to Board of Health right away. And so because of our roots with the town, we already had a great relationship with them. And so it's just started brainstorming with them what this could look like for our community. And things quickly escalated right away where we realized that we needed to change our operations. And so we have had a great collaboration. In fact, I was on a meeting this morning with the Council on Aging and Food Link and the Public Schools, the Director of Food Services, so that we can work together to make sure that everybody has the food they need in the midst of this crisis. And I don't think a lot of communities have that. I think Arlington is unique that we are in some way still a small town and we can still work together. And we have just great relationships and collaborations that we can really benefit us in the midst of this crisis. So yeah, we were able to start right away, start talking about what we were going to do and how we were all going to shift our operations. And these are crucial relationships to have right now as we're, I don't think any one agency or organization could do all of this. We all have to work together in the midst of this to make sure that our entire community is cared for right now. And how have you shifted your operations? Yeah, so in March, we made some changes too so that people could still come to the market. I mean, again, we want people to have that choice. And so we put up right away, we put X's, we made six feet designations between people, we put up tables to have, you know, normal traffic flows so people can understand where they're going to go, that kind of stuff. But we did, the end of March, we were notified by Board of Health that we can no longer have the market open. Again, Ireland is unique in where, because you may have seen a lot of places are doing like drive by, like cars drive by, you put groceries in their trunk and they go on. We know that 60% of the folks that come to us either take public transportation or walk, so we can't drive through delivery model. So we transition to 100% home delivery model. And the way that we're making this work is again, partnerships. So Council on Aging has kind of become our, their phone number has become our food hotline. So any individual regardless of age that lives in Arlington can call this hotline, or they can go to the Arlingtonian's website and fill out a form. So we try to give people again a choice of what food they want, because if we're giving people food they don't want, then that's not helping the situation. So we do provide some limited choices for people so they can decide, you know, what kind of rice or what kind of canned vegetables. And again, we're always bringing fresh produce into the mix as well. So then each kind of takes care of the food part and the packing part and making sure that we get the right orders together. And then we are also working with Medical Reserve Corps. So they're a group of volunteers that, you know, are deployed in the midst of something like this pandemic to really work and make sure that, you know, in this situation they're getting the food directly to the people. So they're doing the food deliveries for us. And of course, thank you for doing that. And then of course we're working with the Greater Boston Food Bank and Food Link and restaurants then to be also supply the food for us so we can pack those bags. So, you know, a typical family, we're being able to almost maintain how much we typically give people because of these partnerships, because we're able to kind of all have our own thing that we're focusing on to be able to make sure that the food is going out. So, you know, for us last week and probably this week as well, we serve about 250 families. And for compared to our market, our normal numbers, that's a 50% increase. Also looking at the folks that we're serving, it's a 35% or new to us. So they've never been to the market. This is the first time they're accessing food in this way. And so we of course are hearing the unemployment numbers. In Massachusetts, food insecurity is now at a 38% rate, which is about four times normal. So we know that, yeah, that the things are really hard for people right now. And we're doing what we can to respond to that. And we plan on being here for a long haul to make sure that food continues to be available. Yeah, for as long as possible, we will do that. Right. And you know, one of the things, here's a gap I see in the model and I'm sure you guys have recognized it. There are a certain number of people, I assume a certain percentage of folks who would come to the market with some regularity, I imagine, who are homeless, who simply there is no fixed address to which you can deliver any goods. Do you have a sense of how many, you know, what kind of percentage of folks who avail themselves of Arlington Eats is homeless or at least without a place to deliver food to? And what, if anything, can you do about that? Yeah, so there is already, and this was a collaboration that I started before any of this happened, a human service network here in Arlington where agencies are coming together to talk about specific situations of individuals that are homeless. In Arlington, we have a low number that are like living in tents or living in their cars. There are people that exist in Arlington that are doing that, but it's a low percentage. And they're on the radar. So Health and Human Services is working to make sure that those folks are being cared for. What we see more of is people living on those couches, and that's still considered homeless. So thankfully, they have an address we can deliver to and I've even gotten a few requests saying, hey, I need to put in an order for myself, but my friend is living with me now too. Can they also put an order at the same address? We're like, of course, you know, we'll deliver to both of you at that address. So yeah, we are again, relying on the Health and Human Services and other social workers and social agencies in Arlington to really help address that as well. Yeah, and I know from a little bit of work with the MRC so far that there are lots and lots of safeguards in place for people delivering the food, as is the model that you're following now. What kind of impact has there been so far in this pandemic time on your volunteer corps and on the folks that you can count on to make these deliveries every day? Yeah, so that's been really hard. It was a tough decision for us, but we got recommendations from the Board of Health that we did need to put in some restrictions in terms of our volunteer groups. So we did have to make the decision to individuals that are 60 and over cannot volunteer at the time as well as any high risk and any teens. So that actually took a big number of our volunteers, especially the regular volunteers that we so depend on that are coming every single week, kind of know where everything's at. We can just say, hey, go do this, they do it. So we are really saddened by that, that they aren't able to volunteer right now. But we know that for us to get past this as a community, that these are the restrictions we have to put in place. Thankfully, there's a lot of people have come forward and said, hey, we're available now, we weren't before, can we come volunteer? So since this pandemic has started, we have had about 130 new volunteers registered with us. So we're definitely putting them in place and getting them to work. Our numbers are a lot lower. Again, we can only have at a typical shift for our market, we'd have about 20 volunteers come. Right now, we're limiting to eight, nine people to volunteer. So it's a lot limited right now. And we know that once this is over with that a lot of people are going back to work, which is great. And so, and we'll be able to have our regular volunteers come back. And I think we're gonna have a big party to welcome everybody back, you know, once we get back. I would think so, yeah. Yeah, so it sounds like roughly speak, well, so again, calculator having been left behind, but I'm struck by a couple of numbers. You were saying that yesterday or recently in terms of deliveries to how many families that that was double what you would be seeing at the market under normal conditions. And what I just heard you saying is you're about at half of the number of people who are able to kind of volunteer and provide a lot of the of the of the work labor to get the food to to to your clients. How's that work? If you're delivering twice as much food, but you have half as many people doing it, is it just folks are doing longer shifts? Or is that how things are working out? Yeah, so it's actually a 50% increase. So not quite not quite. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, deliveries. Yeah, it looks a lot different. So yeah, we've had, I would say, at least 50% of our volunteers are not able to volunteer right now. But we've had about 130 people sign up. So we are getting a lot of new people right now. So that's helping. But again, our shifts are so few or in terms of how many people we could have on there. In a lot of ways, you know, we do a lot of work at the market normally to make sure it's a 100% choice model. So, you know, we're setting up shelves and we're setting up all this furniture and whatnot. And right now, the way we're doing it is we're packing bags. So each individual volunteer gets a packing list, they go through it, fill the bags, and so on and so forth. It's like an assembly line, basically. You've had to make the process just that much more efficient and sacrifice a little bit on the choice side. Exactly. Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. I'm curious about what changes you, you know, to the way that you are doing things have come about because of this, that you think might continue in force even after, assuming there is an after, we get by this. Are there things that you guys have learned or things you've had to do under the exigent circumstances and that you realize, oh, this is either a good idea or people are very happy about this or in some way you want to hold on to that? Well, you know, right now, we're just so in response mode that we aren't, you know, we're still working on how is this process working and how can we make it better. But I think one of the things that because we're seeing a lot of new people, we have an opportunity now to ask people who've never been with us, what do they want? What's prevented them from coming in the past? Is it purely economic? Like I'm now unemployed. I have to or is it, I don't want to go to the market or food pantry because I don't want to stand online. So, you know, I'm hoping that when things settle down a little bit, we can maybe do some phone calls or some surveys where we can ask people, what are your preferences? What can you, how can we make it so that we know where your barriers and how can we limit your barriers in terms of getting access to food? So I think those are kind of some of the things that we're going to take away from this. You know, we've always kind of done some home deliveries for folks that can't get out. And now we can do a little more, you know, a robust, again, choice model. I think before it's been kind of like, we'll, we'll try to work with you, but we're limited. But now we can say, okay, we can actually do it. We have an opportunity of, we have an online form or we can have someone fill it out for you, so that you can have exactly what the food you want. You know, I wonder if there is, if there are people who clearly there's, there's been this enormous expansion, 50%, as you were saying, in terms of families who are being served by the home delivery system. I'm wondering how many, if any of the, that increase might be due to the fact that people would feel stigmatized or a perception of stigmatization about coming in to the market, but are willing to, you know, have a home delivery where they're not running the risk of, I don't know, somebody that they know seeing them or whatever it is that would concern them about coming to the market. Do you have any idea whether that might be happening in some cases? Sure, and that's a speculation, but at this point we have no idea. We need to do some surveying and understanding with people. Well, you know, I was curious about that. That may not, you know, have any benefit knowing, knowing that one way or the other may not have any benefit for your operation, so that's, that's fine. Yeah, I think it will. I mean, again, you know, earlier in the conversation, we said there's 3,500 food insecure individuals. Now I'm going to guess what that's going to go up because of our, our economic situation, but we, we knew that we were serving about 15 to 1800 individuals with all of our programs. So that's, you know, that half, but not even, you know, we're still a long ways from serving everybody, and we don't plan on, on serving everybody. We know there's other programs like Meals on Meals. Of course, Food League has our drop off at various places around town. So we're all kind of working together. But I think at the end of the day, we just want to make sure that everybody, regardless of the pandemic, has access to the food they need because really no one in our community should be going hungry. Well, I'm, I know that you guys are 100% committed to that, to getting people the food that they need. How can people get you what you need? And what is that? Is it money? Is it more volunteers, masks? You know, what is it that you could use? Yeah. So, I mean, those are changing every single day. We're right now, we're like, how do we get bags? You know, we haven't figured out a good system yet. So I think at this point, you know, the best way to support us is either through volunteering and, or financially donating. We are, last in March, we increased our food budget by 66% because we're having to buy so much more because we're not getting as many, we can't take community donations right now. We hope to somehow figure out a way to reimplement that eventually. But right now, we're not quite sure. So, yes, at our website has all that information, ArlingtonEats.org. So people can go there to donate or they can go there to sign up to volunteer. As well, people are, you know, interested in sending a check, we are still receiving mail. And so our mailing address is 58 Medford Street in Arlington 02474. So that's really kind of the best ways. And then please keep us on your radar. So as things lighten up, you know, we're hoping to again go back to community food donations. We've had good success in the past with neighborhood donations, where we actually have now a hit in a sense where you can start a neighborhood donation drive for us. And we kind of have specific items we like, different months. And so kind of have targeted asked requests. A lot of that is on our Facebook page. So you can look up ArlingtonEats on our Facebook page. So those are the kind of the ways to keep, you know, everybody stay safe right now. I think that's the thing I want to tell everybody. And then when it is time, like, we will definitely continue to need your support because, again, it's there's a lot of uncertainty in terms of the economic future of our country. And so we think that unemployment is going to stay high for a long time. So we're going to see a lot of people and we're going to have increased needs that are all our programs. Yeah, it seems certainly seems very patently obvious to to to most of us, I would think that, you know, public health, the health crisis itself, first thing to deal with the economic ramifications of this are something we are all going to be living with and some much more than others. Let us let us always remember, you know, folks like myself and Scott in my, you know, my room in my house here getting to talk to you and being interested and supportive of all these things and the work that you do, nonetheless, that's not the same as the day as the life that every, you know, tons of people are waking up to every day. So we do need to stay mindful of that. And the fact that that's likely to get only more challenging rather than less as the months go by even once we feel better about our collective health. I wanted to just to invite you as a last thing to you already mentioned staying safe and that that's the most important thing but to share anything else with our audience that you would like that we haven't been able to cover so far or you either haven't covered so far or any more resources you think of or anything you would like to say just to wrap up. Yeah. Yeah, I've said this multiple times, but again, Arlington Eats is a community organization like we we have our roots in the community here and we have plans to stay in the community for many, many years. You know, unfortunately, hunger is going to be something that we're going to have to deal with for a long time. We'd love to have a hunger free Arlington right out of business. Wouldn't you love that? I would love that. I would go garden. So, you know, we're in this together. I think that's the thing I keep reminding myself is that we're all in this together as a community collectively as neighbors, again, serving neighbors that we're here for each other and that, you know, if it's a situation where someone needs food for the first time, don't feel ashamed to ask for it. Again, how many of us are one paycheck away from or a medical crisis away from being food insecure? I would say a lot of us are like that. So please reach out if you do need help. And you know, if you are able bodied and want to work, help, we definitely will take your help. Thank you. Great, great message. Great work you're doing. Great conversation here. We really appreciate it. I have been speaking to Andy Done, who is the executive director of Arlington Eats, one of our treasure organizations here in town, relying a lot on volunteer energy as so many of us do. And as we like to highlight here on Million Dollar Gip. Andy, once more, thanks very much for the work you and Arlington Eats are doing. Keep it up, stay strong, and we will talk to you on the other side. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I'm James Milan. This is Million Dollar Gift. We'll see you later.