A coalition of food access groups announced the launch of an online ordering system on Wednesday to increase access to nutritious and culturally relevant food.
Community partners, including medical providers at federally qualified health centers, will be able to prescreen individuals for food insecurity and refer them to the program.
It’s being spearheaded by the Food Access Network, a cooperative effort created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic that includes Feeding Chittenden, the Addison Community Action Food Shelf in Middlebury and NorthWest Family Foods in St. Albans.
People who have trouble accessing nutritious, affordable food in Franklin, Grand Isle, Chittenden and Addison counties can choose the food they want on an online ordering system called PantrySoft and have it delivered to their home or available for pickup.
“It’s almost like a magic wand where any worker in a mental health agency or a community health clinic or a classroom can sort of be magically transformed into a charitable food worker,” said Emmet Moseley, Addison County food access coordinator at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, at a press conference to announce the launch.
According to Moseley, a community provider can be trained in 15 minutes or less to add clientele into the PantrySoft system.
Julia MacGibeny, the food access network center manager for Feeding Chittenden, said that once the individuals and families log in, they can choose the food they want and the day they want it delivered — with advance notice of at least two days.
They can order food on a monthly or weekly basis depending on their needs, MacGibeny said.
“We realized that transportation, healthy food, and then of course, just the ability to access that food in a comfortable and stigma free way was really a barrier for many, many folks in our communities,” MacGibeny said.
Based on a University of Vermont study that looked at the food preferences of refugee populations, MacGibeny said that the Food Access Network decided to incorporate offerings of basmati and jasmine rice as well as dried lentils, pinto beans, black beans and kidney beans, among other culturally relevant food.
The Food Access Network has already begun delivering food to families in Addison County that are a part of the Head Start program, a federal program for children under age 5 in low-income families, as well as to people without shelter and migrant farmers in Franklin and Grand Isle counties, according to Paul Dragon, executive director of Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity.
According to MacGibeny, the Food Access Network received $275,000 in funding from donations and grant money for the online ordering program while Feeding Chittenden contributed $25,000 of its own funds. The budget for this upcoming fiscal year is $300,000.
