The Boston Foundation partners with donors to distribute $900,000 in Meeting the Moment grants to regional food nonprofits

The new round of grants was seeded with $500,000 from the Boston Foundation’s Fund for Boston’s Future, which donors quickly supplemented as part of the Foundation’s long-term commitment to meeting basic needs. The Foundation announced its first grant, a $1 million commitment to the Greater Boston Food Bank, last month as part of a design to support both the hub and spokes of the region’s complex food system.

The Greater Boston Food Bank distributes as much as 80 percent of the food supplied to food pantries across the Commonwealth; the nine grantees announced today were chosen for their essential role in the Greater Boston ecosystem, the amount of food they deliver to partner organizations, the models they use for food distribution, and the cities and towns they serve.

Grantmaking is just one part of the Boston Foundation’s Meeting the Moment commitment, which uses the Foundation’s grantmaking, donor partnerships, research, convening, and advocacy power to distribute critical funding that responds to current need, identifies paths to protect critical systems and institutions, and collaboratively reimagines what a more resilient, robust safety net could look like.

As part of the effort, Boston Indicators, the Foundation’s research center, released a new brief last week that found well over 40,000 current Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in Greater Boston are at risk of having their support stripped or reduced by new regulations. The Foundation is also hosting regular meetings to discuss the need and coordinate strategies to support key organizations, and is working with local and state leaders to highlight needs and areas for support.

“By working together to ensure everyone who lives in Greater Boston is seen and provided what they need to survive and thrive, we can emerge from this era even stronger as a community,” said Orlando Watkins, Vice President and Chief Program Officer at the Boston Foundation.  “These grants represent just one element of our commitment as a civic leader and partner in the community.”

Meeting the Moment: Sustaining Families grantees

In addition to the Greater Boston Food Bank, which received a $1 million grant last month, the following nine organizations are receiving $100,000 grants. They include:

Distributors:

Merrimack Valley Food Bank
The Merrimack Valley Food Bank provides nutritious food and personal care items to emergency feeding programs serving the low-income, homeless, and hungry. They are one of four food banks in Massachusetts that serve food pantries, shelters, and meal programs that, in turn, serve individuals and families. In FY2024, they distributed over 4 million pounds of food and have distributed over 63 million pounds of food since their founding. They serve 103 member agencies in 33 cities and towns.

Spoonfuls
Spoonfuls helps to facilitate the recovery and distribution of healthy, fresh food that would otherwise be discarded. Since 2010, they have kept over 40 million pounds of good food out of landfills, and this year, they are on track to recover more than 5.8 million pounds of food to distribute to 195 partners across Massachusetts.

Greater Boston Food Access Hub
The Greater Boston Food Access Hub is a collaborative food storage and distribution center in Roxbury that distributes food throughout Boston, with the YMCA of Greater Boston as its lead organization. A unique collaboration among a major healthcare institution, a community-focused nonprofit, and City government, the collaborative hub will allow fresher, refrigerated food to reach food pantries, soup kitchens, and other food distribution sites throughout Boston, particularly in neighborhoods with the highest rates of food insecurity.

Suppliers:

Boston Area Gleaners
Boston Area Gleaners builds innovative partnerships with local organizations and businesses to bridge food distribution gaps, improve healthy food access, prevent on-farm food waste, and create new markets for locally grown produce. Their vision is to sustain a permanent agricultural supply chain that will improve the viability of local farms and the health of communities that have historically suffered from inequity in the food system. In 2024, they helped distribute over 4.2 million pounds of food to 72 partners by working with more than 70 farms across the state.

The Food Project
The Food Project’s youth, staff, and volunteers grow 200,000 pounds of food annually on their farms and operate farmers’ markets in Boston’s Dudley neighborhood and in Lynn. Each year, the Food Project hires 120 teens to help grow food and donate more than 80,000 servings of fresh produce to 20 hunger relief organizations across eastern Massachusetts. Their farms make fresh, culturally relevant produce available to neighbors and provide a platform for testing new affordability models. These markets were the first in Massachusetts to accept electronic SNAP benefits and to pilot the SNAP-matching programs that have now been adopted statewide.

Gaining Ground
Gaining Ground, a nonprofit organic farm in Concord, Massachusetts, grows vegetables and fruit with the help of several thousand community volunteers and donates 100% of this fresh food to area meal programs and food pantries. Their approach is local and sustainable—most of the produce is distributed within 20 miles of the farm and within 24 hours of harvest. They donate over 130,000 pounds of produce to 18 organizations each year.  Over the past couple of years, they have acquired more federal land to cultivate and grow more food.

Food Pantries and Deliveries:

Brockton Area Hunger Network Cooperative
In 2020, The Charity Guild (TCG) was invited by the City of Brockton to lead a discussion on Food Insecurity and TCG proposed an innovative cross-agency program to unify the client intake processes of local food pantries. Using a shared intake system, cooperative members have streamlined the process of receiving food, significantly reduced waiting times, better connected neighbors to local food programs, and given community members more time for their daily needs. The Charity Guild continues to lead this collaborative program and member agencies include Boys & Girls Club of Metro South, Brockton Public Schools, Catholic Charities South, Father Bill’s & MainSpring, Full Gospel Tabernacle Church, Massasoit Community College, Salvation Army Brockton, and the Brockton Farmers Market.

Community Servings
Community Servings actively engages the community to provide fresh, medically-tailored meals to individuals and their families experiencing critical or chronic illness and nutrition insecurity. This year, they will provide over 1.2 million meals to more than 6,000 individuals experiencing critical and chronic illnesses. Their meals meet the medical and nutritional needs of clients with HIV/AIDS, cancer, kidney disease, diabetes, and other life-threatening illnesses.

Advocacy and Networks:

Project Bread
Project Bread connects people and communities in Massachusetts to reliable sources of food while advocating for policies that make food more accessible—so that no one goes hungry. Working with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, they help schools with their breakfast programs and encourage student participation in school meals. Their Summer Eats helps fill the summer nutrition gap by continuing to provide free meals to all kids and teens, 18 and under, across the state.