A Burlington initiative to settle overdue parking tickets while providing assistance to people who are food insecure resulted in a donation of almost $40,000 to local nonprofit Feeding Chittenden.
The Fines for Food program diverted 50% of the revenue it received from overdue parking tickets between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15 to help the food shelf make meals for people struggling with food insecurity.
To raise awareness about the program, the city government sent mailers to roughly 9,000 people with overdue parking fines, said Chapin Spencer, Burlington’s director of public works. Of those 9,000, about 10% paid up. The unresponsive 90% could face impoundment.
Still, the 10% marked an above-average response rate to overdue tickets, meaning the city earned back what it typically does per month even while giving half its revenue to Feeding Chittenden, Spencer said at a press conference Thursday afternoon
Feeding Chittenden, meanwhile, received $39,638.50, enough to prepare about 27,000 meals, said Rob Meehan, the organization’s director.
At the press conference, Mayor Miro Weinberger praised Feeding Chittenden and thanked the city staff members who made the program happen.
City Councilor Karen Paul, D-Ward 6 — who helped spearhead the project — called it “an opportunity for the city to pay it forward” while helping to fill a persistent gap in its revenue.
The city still has about $1 million in unpaid parking tickets, Spencer said.
“Although we hope this will be an annual event, I do hope there comes a time where we don’t need to be doing these events, either because we don’t have any more overdue parking fines … or because food insecurity will be a truth of the past,” Paul said.
— Jack Lyons
