While most of us are preparing for a Thanksgiving feast, there are others in our town that struggle with food insecurity and can’t get enough food on a daily basis. Their stress has been compounded by the federal shutdown and the loss of SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Food Stamps – but that hunger is always there.

Greg Johnson, Town Administrator, said that the town can’t supplement benefits that come from the federal government but they have used the town website to connect residents with the state office that manages SNAP and support the food drives local nonprofits are running. They are sensitive to residents’ needs and the Select Board recently approved expanded hours for Open Table.

Amy Loveless, Director of the Council on Aging, said she is getting “calls from seniors who don’t attend senior center programs but who are worried about food. I’ve had seniors in tears, it’s been very intense the last two weeks. We connect them to services, give van rides to the Maynard Food Pantry, and post resources on Facebook.  

This is a fantastic community,” Amy said, “We rallied quickly but the anxiety is still there. Everyone is holding their breath – how long can this go on? I just got a call from a senior who has never used a food pantry before; they were so grateful for our help.”

Maynard has responded to this crisis with our two food pantries expanding their work to try and meet the urgent need. They both need help and support, both in volunteer time and money.

Mary Brannelly, founder and president of the Maynard Food Pantry, was asked by the Board of Selectmen to open a pantry in town in 1992 because so many Maynard residents were going to the Sudbury food pantry. “Well before SNAP ended we were getting more and more calls from new families asking about our services,” Mary said. “We usually saw three or four new families a week but now it’s 70 to 75 families. People have found us and, in times like these, support and outreach are great. They are grateful to take everything we can give them.

The support from the community has been amazing; it takes a village with a dedicated group of volunteers,” according to Mary. The Maynard Food Pantry can be contacted through Mary at [email protected]. They are still taking names for people wishing to donate a Christmas dinner or sponsor a child with presents.

Open Table started in Concord in 1989 to address a growing awareness of food insecurity in one of the Commonwealth’s historic, wealthy towns. Now expanded with their first location in Maynard in 2006 to their present building on Main Street in 2017, Open Table has seen “a huge surge in need since November 1,” said Alexandra (Alex) DePalo, Executive Director. “We normally get 10 or 12 new households a week; after the news that SNAP was cut, we saw 97 new families.  We’ve had to increase our hours, increase our deliveries, increase our food drives, and increase hours for staff.” Open Table served nearly 475 households visiting the drive-through food pantry each week (compared with an average of 325 before), and over 2,200 prepared meals distributed to community members (compared with an old average of 1,400). 

The first week in November we had an additional 30% increase in need and we anticipate the same numbers going forward,’ Alex said. “The outpouring of community support has been really terrific but I want people to please stay connected with us. People are talking about this now because of the holidays but we need them – and their food drives – in January, February, and later.”

Alex closed by saying that this “will be a hard winter for people. We are so grateful to Maynard and so happy to be located here.  But a whole lot of people need our help now and they will in the future, too. We do the best we can within our scope of services and we need the community to continue their support.”  For more information, visit: https://www.opentable.org.