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‘It could be anyone’ : The Manchester Community Cupboard
Reporting by Katie Cherry & photos by Grace Cabasco, Burr & Burton Academy
On the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month, a group of local volunteers travel to the Manchester Town Hall to unload boxes of food from a Vermont Foodbank truck. Though there are many heavy boxes to move and unpack, the laughter and smiling faces never cease.
The Manchester Community Cupboard has been open since the June of 1990 and has not stopped giving back to the community throughout the pandemic. Many facets of the Cupboard have been impacted by the virus. Martha Carey, the Cupboard’s director, explained that each month they give out around 15 to 20,000 pounds of food. That number is about 25% higher than pre-pandemic times.
Carey has stayed with the Cupboard through thick and thin. “We’ve had people whose primary earner has been sick. We’ve had people who themselves are immunocompromised and so they don’t want to go into the store,” she said. “It could be anyone, but everyone is welcome.”
Courtney Doubleday, the VT Foodbank truck driver, has been making this trip from Brattleboro since the pre-pandemic days. “I mean, when COVID hit, definitely everything exploded, and our demand increased several fold,” he said. “But things have kind of narrowed down since then.”
Jennifer Sullivan is a retired nurse who additionally volunteers at Habitat for Humanity. The pandemic led her to volunteer at the Cupboard while the Habitat trips were put on pause. She’s been at the Cupboard now for 3 to 4 months. She usually isn’t there when people come to shop, but on occasion she’ll meet someone. “They’re so grateful for anything that they’re able to get here,” she said. “This helps them a lot.”
While there were many systems put in place that had to be adjusted, there have also been some positive “inventions” that have come from a devastating time. There is now a little area, open everyday, that is kept well stocked and unlocked, just in case someone needs something and they can’t make during “business hours”.
The inside of the Cupboard is on the smaller end. “This trailer is here for the winter so that people have a place to shop, because we used to have clients come inside into our space, but [due to Covid] they still don’t,” Martha Carey explained. “I’m hoping by next winter, we’ll have people back inside. But for now, we’ve got the shed, we’ve got this guy (the trailer), and we’ve got the outdoor cooler. So that’s helped a lot.”
Even with growing demand, the Cupboard is always stocked with fresh produce from the Vermont Foodbank but also the local grocery stores in Manchester such as Shaws, which provides some of their deli meats. There are also perishable food items available in family boxes and senior boxes. Grants have also allowed for local restaurants to donate meals that can be easily reheated.
Other community organizations, such as Grateful Hearts, also contribute some of what they make to the cupboard. Through a partnership with Hildene Farm and the Burr and Burton Academy’s Farm program, the Cupboard has access to the fresh produce for the delicious meals they make, as well as local farm surplus.
The pandemic still isn’t over, but Martha Carey and the other volunteers continue to support the community.
“A lot of people lost work at the beginning of the pandemic. We’ve had people whose primary earner has been sick. We’ve had people who themselves are immunocompromised, and there’s been a lot more delivered to people who are homebound,”Carey explained.
“None of this would be possible without the volunteers.”
