Chris Lavenets was driving toward Hyannis from Eastham on a sweltering Thursday afternoon, on a mission:
Make sure the Family Table Collaborative’s food distribution, scheduled for 4:30 pm in the parking lot of the Hyannis Youth and Community Center on Bassett Lane, went off without a hitch.
The Collaborative’s refrigerated van was packed; if all went according to plan they would hand out almost 370 meals to people already lining up.
Asked how she was faring — was summer traffic a burden? — she scoffed:
“People need food. Doesn’t matter the temperature, traffic, or weather. We’ll be there.”
Lavenets volunteers to quarterback the team, and she’s as hands-on as it gets; driving the truck, handling sign-up sheets, calling out first-name greetings to many stopping by. The van shows up every other week in Hyannis, checkerboarding Thursdays at the Elks Lodge parking lot off Route 6 in Eastham. Prepared meals are created at the Family Table’s commercial kitchen in South Yarmouth.
Plus the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance sends dozens of containers of chowders and stew weekly to add to the mix as part of their “Small Boats, Big Taste” program.
Family Table’s effort began as a rapid response to COVID, reports operations manager Deke Knight. A key partner became Whole Foods Market in Hyannis, where Family Table picks up 20 to 40 “banana boxes” filled mainly with produce every day, seven days a week.
Whole Foods has super-high standards for what they put on shelves; food they jettison (that might otherwise be composted into biofuel or dumped in a landfill), could have a blemish but often remains enticing and edible. Family Table’s culinary team turns that and other donations into great meals like sweet potato gnocci, broccoli alfredo, beef stir fry, stuffed peppers. Bananas and desserts also show up.
To make it mobile, Whole Foods also donated the refrigerated food truck, “a $90,000 piece of equipment,” marvels Knight.
With other distributions like Councils on Aging, Family Table ships as many as 700 meals a week, also serving arrivals in South Yarmouth. During last winter’s blizzard, that number grew to thousands. Last Thanksgiving, Family Table distributed 2000 turkey dinners, a staggering effort responding to overlooked need.
In Hyannis a few weeks ago, chicken was the main donated protein, so the crowd was seeing pepper ranch chicken, chicken fajita, lemon chicken. Pain d’Avignon bread was an added treat. People order a day in advance so Lavenets checked off names on a clipboard, who’s taking what.
Mary Jo Felice lives in housing for the elderly in Hyannis and comes every two weeks to pick up for herself and six or seven neighbors who have a hard time getting out.
“People are so grateful,” she said. “And everyone knows: When you help someone out, you feel good too.”
“Mary Jo, do you want chowder?” asked one of the Family Table team.
“Oh yes, but just the white!” she called back. Her people prefer traditional chowders, haddock and clam, to a tomato-based skate stew.
“Our mantra is to say yes to donations,” smiled Deke. “It could be a home gardener with tomatoes, a large wholesaler, a little or a lot, we try to say yes.”
Another manifested mantra needed no explanation: Every person was treated as a neighbor, not a hint of judgement or condescension.
The Eastham Elks Lodge parking lot hand-out every other week has fewer sign-ups than Hyannis but still a lot, 135 recently, and the vibe is similar. People also are encouraged to pick up for neighbors and friends.
“Our role is to offer food, not create barriers to access,” said Knight.
Maureen Salam jumped in her car and drove from Dennisport, a trip she makes every two weeks, also picking up for two or three friends in her neighborhood. Moroccan meatballs and Lebanese eggplant were ready to go. She high-fived thanks to volunteer Karen Szvoren, and made the trek home.
Could Family Table’s model be replicated, a template for fighting food insecurity?
Deke Knight thinks so, but this effort is driven in large part by an array of volunteers; he sees the engaged retirement community on the Cape as “hard to beat.” He also notes that Family Table Collaborative’s co-founder Jeni Wheeler is a great ambassador and drives a vision for sustainability that includes private catering to offset close to 50 percent of free food distribution expenses.
So it’s working. But far better would be to eliminate the reason it exists:
The hidden scourge of “food insecurity.”
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Thanks for enlightening us about this worthwhile program, Seth. The mystique that Cape Cod is a Shangri-La is a misnomer. There are plenty of people here living on the edge of poverty and it’s important for people, like yourself to keep that ever present in our minds and hearts.
Started volunteering after reading your piece. Incredible organization- kind, efficient, and working to be as environmentally sustainable as possible, as they keep so much food out of the waste stream while meeting the needs of hundreds of Cape Codders. Reduce and Reuse, with a lot of recycling too.