Everyone Eats! Returns for the New Year

[BRATTLEBORO, VT, January 13, 2021-] Thanks to a combination of funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the state of Vermont the short hiatus for Everyone Eats! Brattleboro (EE!B) is over.  EE!B is resuming operations on January 18th.

For Brattleboro area eaters, the program is going to feel very similar. Starting on January 18th, meal distributions will continue to be at 80 Flat St in Brattleboro from 4 - 6 pm Monday through Thursday and be open to everyone negatively affected by the pandemic. There is no registration or any paperwork required to participate; just come by car or on foot to the distribution site to receive meals for your family, including vegetarian, gluten-free, and vegan options. Partner organizations will also continue to reserve meals that they deliver directly to their clients. 

Restaurants and EE!B are working together to increase the variety and consistency of meals served. We will be welcoming new restaurants, such as Whetstone Brewery, Four Columns, and the Putney Food Coop. Additionally, the program has expanded, and residents of Marlboro and the West River Valley are now also eligible to participate in the program—that’s in addition to the five towns already participating in the EE!B hub: Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Putney, and Vernon.  

Everyone Eats purchases to-go meals from local restaurants to feed our community. The program supports the local economy while supporting those in need who have been negatively impacted by COVID by food insecurity or those looking for the nourishment of prepared meals because of this crisis we are living through. 

The first phase of the program—August to December 2020—brought a much-needed injection of relief funding to the local economy and greatly increased our region’s ability to support our community. Over the course of 22 weeks, 80,387 meals were distributed to community members, Everyone Eats accounted for an average of 37% of participating restaurants’ sales, and $41,818.54 worth of Vermont products and produce were purchased as ingredients for meals. 

“As we continue to live with this health pandemic and economic crisis, we know the need is great,” says Stephanie Bonin, EE!B Program Director. “We’re grateful to be able to resume operations so quickly and continue to support our restaurants, farmers, and community.”

During the course of the COVID health pandemic, 1 in 3 people in Vermont have experienced hunger. While Everyone Eats does not solve food insecurity and the economic crisis it has become an important part of the relief offered. For more information about EE!B, to donate or to volunteer, visit its website (https://www.brattleboro.com/everyoneeats) or try it out for yourself by visiting 80 Flat St from 4-6 pm, Monday through Thursday. 

Everyone Eats! Brattleboro (EE!B)

EE!B is a project of Vermont Everyone Eats (VEE), a statewide program funded by Federal and State funds made possible through a grant provided by Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA). The Brattleboro coalition consists of representatives from the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, Vermont Foodbank, Foodworks, Food Connects, The Putney Foodshelf, Putney Mutual Aid, and the Agency of Human Services for the state of Vermont.

Contact: Stephanie Bonin, Executive Director, Downtown Brattleboro Alliance stephanie@brattleboro.com

Everyone Eats! Delivered to Schools

Five months ago, Everyone Eats! Brattleboro, a program that pays restaurants to make meals for those in the community negatively impacted by the pandemic, first piloted in Brattleboro. The program has had such a large impact on the entire Vermont community, it will continue into 2021 through a combination of federal, state, and philanthropic funding. In addition to distribution at the 80 Flat St location, organizations get meals out to the community via their networks. The Farm to School team helped by ensuring teachers at all of the Windham Southeast School District, WSESD, schools got a chance to try the meals and learn more about the program. Not only was it another way for meals funded by the CARES Act to get into the community but it brought a welcome break to busy teachers who could skip a night of cooking. 

While passing out the meals, our team was reminded once again of the importance food plays in our sense of community. The joy that comes from shared food, even in physically distanced circumstances, is near-universal and a source of strength for many. We were grateful to have the opportunity to be the last leg of a long chain of community members working to make this program possible. Starting with our local farmers (meals contained, on average, over 25% local ingredients), Mama Sezz then managed all of the pick-up logistics and dedicated volunteers who made distribution a weekly part of their lives were the backbone of the operation. Everyone Eats! has brought hundreds of new people into the world of charitable food and created new connections within the community. We’re excited to bring these new connections and perspectives with us as we continue to strengthen our local food system. 

Everyone Eats! Springfield Highlights

At the beginning of the pandemic, local leaders in Springfield and Chester stepped up to organize new and familiar resources to feed their communities. 

Trish Paradis, executive director of The Springfield Family Center (SCF), an institution that has been serving the community for almost 50 years, adapted services to support the increased nutrition need due to COVID-19. At the same time, Christopher Meyer, a Chester native, and Jason Tostrup, owner of The Free Range, began serving restaurant meals and meal kits for community members through their new non-profit, Chester Helping Hands (CHH). 

“We were collaborating, sharing resources and supporting each other,” said Paradis. “When we heard about the potential for Everyone Eats! funding, we decided we could partner as a hub and better serve our region.”

SFC and CHH were awarded CARES Act funding to serve as the regional hub for Everyone Eats! (EE!), a restaurant stimulus and community food program, which has distributed over 17,000 meals since the summer. 

EE! is not only feeding the community, it is also benefiting local restaurants. As the regional hub, The Springfield Family Center and Chester Helping Hands collaborate with 11 restaurants to distribute food at 10 different distribution sites in Springfield, Chester, Ludlow, Rockingham, Bellows Falls, Cavendish, and Londonderry. 

This unique community food program creates opportunities for hard-working organizations, chefs, and individuals to do meaningful work in their own communities.

“We are really grateful to be a part of this program,” shared Nick Matush, head chef and co-owner of The Copper Fox in Springfield. “In these next few weeks, with tourism especially low, Everyone Eats! will really help keep us afloat. It puts money in our pockets when we’re typically closed and that has been a big help for us.”

What’s On the Menu?

Everyone Eats! is not only meant to support local restaurants but also local farmers. 10% of the food served must be purchased locally, which has connected local farms with local chefs. At the Copper Fox, Everyone Eats! meals are a way to utilize the local ingredients they already purchase.

“The Everyone Eats! menu changes depending on what we have but because our restaurant has a local focus, we are typically above the 10% requirement. We’ve made some vegetarian options like quinoa veggie bowls and rice and beans plus we’ve made beef stew, shepherds pie, BBQ chicken, and more. Any time we serve beef it is from our locally raised, grass-fed cows. We’re proud to be serving our community high-quality food through this program.” 

Everyone Eats! Springfield will continue feeding the community, putting local chefs to work, buying from local farmers, and strengthening local networks until the end of December.

Everyone Eats! meals can be picked up at The Springfield Family Center Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday between 11:30 am to 12:30 pm and in the Springfield Plaza on November 18 from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. 

Chester Helping Hands distributes meals, first come, first served on Wednesdays from 3:30 to 5:00 pm in front of Southern Pie Cafe on the Green in Chester. Registration required for delivery.

Want to support the continued efforts of these local organizations?

Follow The Springfield Family Center and Chester Helping Hands to learn about opportunities to donate and volunteer.

Looking for a locally made meal? Check out www.vteveryoneats.org for more information on finding a distribution site near you.

The Community Finds a Way...Supporting Our Community this Thanksgiving

Giving and receiving in our local community has supported and carried us throughout this pandemic. The upcoming holiday season invites us to further this circle of resiliency. While your traditions may look different this year, the community spirit will be present this holiday season! 

What will your celebration be on Thanksgiving? In August, it was announced that the longstanding Brattleboro Community Thanksgiving wouldn’t happen this year due to safety concerns around COVID-19. Since 1972, this special dinner served over 500 people at its in-person gathering and made deliveries to numerous homebound residents. The Community Thanksgiving also provided a welcoming and inclusive experience “for the community to feed their stomachs and fill their souls.” This year, arguably more than any other year since 1972, more of us need nourishment for our stomachs and souls, so the community has come together to create an alternative. 

Members of the Windham Region Hunger Council met with the Everyone Eats! Brattleboro coalition to come up with a plan. EE!B secured enough funding to provide 1,000 meals for a special holiday distribution. Thanks to additional help from Brattleboro Savings & Loan and donations from local community partners, these meals will be twice the size of a typical EE!B meal and contain a classic Thanksgiving dessert. During these times when gathering to cook an abundant meal might feel overwhelming or not financially feasible, this distribution will help facilitate a memorable and nourishing holiday for everyone in the community.

The special Thanksgiving meal distribution will take place in parallel with the Wednesday, November 25 Everyone Eats! meal distribution from 4 to 6 pm at 80 Flat Street, ensuring that those who need dinner on Wednesday won’t go without. No registration is required; simply stop by in your vehicle or on foot and pick up the number of meals you will need for your family and/or any neighbors who cannot make it.

We are also able to make a very limited number of deliveries for families who have no one to pick up a meal on their behalf. If you need a meal delivered to your home, please visit our order form and request a meal by Friday, November 20th, at the Brattleboro Everyone Eats! website.

If you are unable to access the order form or would like help with the registration process for a meal delivery, you may call 817-888-5125.

While Thanksgiving is centered around food, it is also the start of the holiday spirit of giving and receiving. During this moment in time when community connection is needed more than ever, we offer a menu of options to celebrate and help nourish our community. Everyone has a role to play in that nourishment.

Community Engagement Menu: 

Receive a meal Monday through Thursday 4 to 6 pm at Everyone Eats! through December 31, just recently extended.

Donate to Project Feed the Thousands.

Volunteer with one of the many local organizations helping to make our community run during this holiday season and beyond. Use the United Way of Windham County’s Get Connected Volunteer Portal or call 802-257-4011. 

Sign up for 3SquaresVT, a monthly benefit that helps you buy food. Text VFBSNAP to 85511 or call 1-855-855-6181 to find out more!

Everyone Eats! Brattleboro (EE!B)
EE!B is a project of Vermont Everyone Eats (VEE), a statewide program funded by the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund and made possible through a grant provided by the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) to Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA). This program purchases to-go meals from local restaurants for anyone in Brattleboro, Guilford, Vernon, Dummerston, or Putney who has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Over 26,000 meals have been distributed since August 3rd; our impact is currently 850 meals per day, 4 days per week. The Brattleboro coalition consists of representatives from the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, Vermont Foodbank, Foodworks, Food Connects, the Putney Foodshelf, Putney Mutual Aid, and the State of Vermont.

Shifting the Narrative Around Charitable Food

Nearing the halfway mark for the program, Everyone Eats! grew from a far-fetched idea to a wildly successful COVID-19 relief program that is now replicated throughout the state. With over $600,000 of funding coming from the Federal Coronavirus Relief Fund to southeastern Vermont’s regional economy, the program is a huge support for restaurants, local producers, and residents.

Developed through conversations with the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development and the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance (DBA) on how to use FEMA funds to support local restaurants, the Everyone Eats! Brattleboro (EE!B) coalition now represents a diverse, cross-sector team consisting of nonprofits, state agencies, and local businesses. Modeled off of preceding programs, such as The Skinny Pancake’s Shift Meals program and mutual aid groups that popped up nationwide, the radical idea was to pay local restaurants to feed their neighbors in need.

That seemingly simple idea ended up being more complicated than originally thought. Those complications, along with road bumps in securing funding for the program, pushed a June start date back to August. Despite the setback, that gave the new coalition time to meet, plan, and develop the relationships that would prove essential for success. In an article from earlier this year, Food Connects highlighted the importance of starting with existing connections and celebrated the strong partnerships that exist between charitable food organizations in the area thanks to the Windham Region Hunger Council. The EE!B benefited from these connections as well, but also included new organizations and businesses, opening the door to new opportunities. 

The program has had three major pillars guiding it throughout its creation—supporting local restaurants, supporting our neighbors, and supporting the community. It’s a win for everyone, whether you’re making the food, receiving a meal, or are a producer selling to the restaurants.  Currently, participating restaurants are spending about $2,000 a week total on local food. This is helped by a 10% local purchasing requirement built into the program and restaurants are going far beyond that, with 20% of spending often staying local.  

Photo credit: Stephanie Bonin 

The EE!B coalition saw this program as an opportunity to build compassion in the community. Food shelves and food relief is often stigmatized which creates barriers for families in need of support to access the programs. With many new people accessing support for the first time, we wanted to ensure that the program was equitable for all participants. That meant that those who were experiencing homelessness and long time users of charitable food were able to access the program alongside the newly unemployed and community members picking up meals for the first time. 

We strove for equity through two different approaches. First, we provided an alternative channel for organizations to pick up meals for their clients. By doing this, we made meals accessible to homebound residents, families without cars, or neighbors who had tight schedules and couldn’t make the pick-up times. Next, we created language about the program that made it clear that everyone was welcome—foregoing means-testing, income identification, or other class-based demographics meant that it was easy for anyone to pick up meals. 

Our hope is that by opening up the program to the entire community, a stronger collective recognition and compassion for charitable food has been developed. People who never before had waited in line for a free meal or so clearly been the recipient of community support now have new experiences to draw from. 

So what does this mean moving forward? EE!B will run until December 10. Participation is strong and new restaurants continue to join the program. Looking to the new year, we hope to shift how charitable food is thought about and accessed in our community. Foodworks started this long before the pandemic, adapting their programs to be more trauma-informed and accessible. The new partnerships formed between Foodworks, the Vermont Foodbank and the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance could lead to even more innovation. Services are more often accessed when they’re in central, welcoming, and high-use locations. EE!B saw an increase in users as it mixed traditional charitable food with a more general community support program. What’s next is for the community to decide, whether that be pay-what-you-can markets, mixed-use community spaces where services are also provided, or something yet to be thought of. 

‘Vermont Everyone Eats’ is funded by the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund and made possible through a grant provided by the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA). 

Everyone Eats! Brattleboro Receives Boost in Funding

Everyone Eats! Brattleboro (EE!B)—a restaurant stimulus and community food program—will continue through the end of 2020 thanks to a $654,210 grant from the state. The program brings nutritional relief, care, and comfort to the community and vital financial support to local restaurants. 

To date, the program—which served as the pilot for a statewide rollout—has distributed over 11,950 meals to over 3,000 households while directly paying local businesses $120,000. These strong numbers enabled EE!B to ramp up to 850 meals per day for September through December 10, broadening the reach of the program. 

The initial 4-week pilot worked with 9 Brattleboro restaurants to prepare meals four days a week. With the extension of the program, Shin-La and Echo Restaurant have been added to the line-up and its Program Director, Stephanie Bonin, is working to add others.

Residents in Brattleboro, Putney, Dummerston, Guilford, and Vernon can continue to pick up meals at 80 Flat Street in Brattleboro, Monday through Thursday until December 10th. Pick up is from 4 - 6 pm daily. Meals are free for everyone and no registration is required. Local social service organizations can also sign up directly for meals to provide to their clients. Please see  https://www.brattleboro.com/EveryoneEats for more information. 

New Everyone Eats! programs are cropping up statewide, with 10 “hubs” already created. As new programs get started, organizers look to Everyone Eats! Brattleboro for best practices. The program gained national recognition with coverage from NBC shining a spotlight on Vermont’s successful community response to the pandemic.

Restaurants involved: Dosa Kitchen, Yalla, duo Restaurant, Echo, A Vermont Table, The Porch, Masala House, Hazel, Shin-La, Mama Sezz, and The Works.

Downtown Brattleboro Alliance (DBA) is a non-profit whose mission is to promote the vitality of downtown, the primary center of commerce, culture, and community life for Brattleboro and the surrounding area. DBA is the official non-profit Designated Downtown Organization for the Town of Brattleboro, providing access to grants, technical assistance, and networking opportunities.

Food Connects is an entrepreneurial non-profit that delivers locally produced food as well as educational and consulting services aimed at transforming local food systems.

The Hunger Council of the Windham Region is a group of community leaders and organizations dedicated to ending hunger and malnutrition in the Windham Region. The Hunger Council of the Windham Region is part of the Hunger Councils of Vermont, which are coordinated by Hunger Free Vermont. 

Vermont Foodbank is the state’s largest hunger-relief organization, providing nutritious food through a network of more than 300 community partners. The mission of the Vermont Foodbank is to gather and share quality food and nurture partnerships so that no one in Vermont will go hungry.