Food insecurity is on the rise in Connecticut. According to Feeding America, one in eight residents is food insecure. That includes one in six children and one in four Black and Hispanic residents. Inflation and housing prices have compounded since the COVID pandemic, pushing more people to seek supplemental food.
During the pandemic, the federal government was pitching in. The state’s largest food bank, Connecticut Foodshare, received supplemental food from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Farmers to Families Food Box program. But now, those sources have dried up, yet demand for food is still sky-high. And the state pitches in only a tiny amount: some $1 million during fiscal years 2023 and 2024. Historically, food pantries have raised private funds and they’ve held food drives for shelf-stable cans and boxes at schools and churches.
But they’re also turning to increasingly creative methods to fill the gap between supply and demand. They are harnessing the power of nature, community and technology to get healthier, more abundant food to more people.
Food forest
Behind an apartment building on a major thoroughfare in Hartford’s South End, you’ll find one of these experiments. Here, the Chrysalis Center is cultivating a two-acre plot of land — Hartford’s first “food forest.” More than a community garden, a food forest is a multilayer canopy of trees, shrubs and plants — even mycelium— that mimics the give-and-take of a naturally occurring ecosystem.
Food forests don’t have to be big or densely wooded. The Chrysalis food forest is about the size of a pocket park, sandwiched by residential housing. The building directly in front of the lot is also owned by Chrysalis and houses six young adults and 18 veterans, all of whom are otherwise at risk of homelessness.
In the back of the lot, there are some large, established trees. In the front, 30 raised garden beds were thick with vegetables in late summer, and rows of blueberries and fruit tree saplings aspire to eventually contribute more food. They were planning to harvest sap from red maple trees for syrup, and in the shade of those trees, a pile of logs had been inoculated with spores so that edible mushrooms could sprout.
Urban farmer Sean Bodnar says that the project is still in its infancy. Bodnar’s goal for 2024 was to harvest 3,000 pounds of food from the forest. It’s “a small drop in the bucket” for now, but he expects that poundage will grow each year.
Vegetables and fruit are sold at the Chrysalis-run farmer’s market, which accepts and doubles SNAP dollars. Some produce is distributed to clients at the group’s food pantry and its catering kitchen, which offers job training in food service. Local schools also benefit.
Even within Chrysalis’ headquarters, you’ll find food growing: two hydroponics rooms in the basement are packed with lettuce, tomatoes and peppers, plants that flourish all winter long under grow lights.
Chrysalis has also formed partnerships with grocery chains like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods to supply its food pantry, Freshplace. Instead of a traditional pantry model, which helps clients for an undefined period, Freshplace participants receive the assistance of a case manager and a fixed membership term: households can join for only 18 months and must author a “Fresh Start Plan.” During that time, enrolled members receive case management services from social workers in addition to food and together create the plan.
“It’s not just a hand out, it’s a hand up,” Chrysalis Chief of Staff Judy Gough said. Families are triaged to see what they need to become food secure — whether it’s an employment or educational opportunity, or to get out of debt or find housing. Then, Chrysalis works to get them enrolled in a GED program, helps them book a job interview, works on helping them get out of debt or find housing.
Food swamp
Another Hartford group is finding a middle ground between donated and full-price food. At Grocery on Broad, clients can shop in a typical-looking grocery store, but for a discounted price. Depending on their income, that can be 25% to 50% off of products like fruit, cereal, meat and dairy.
“Food desert,” a term describing an area where there are few fresh food options and no grocery stores within reach, has become a relatively familiar term in the discourse about food access. Ben Dubow says the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford is instead a “food swamp.” Yes, there are stores selling food, but what’s on offer tends to be of low quality, and fresh options come at elevated prices.
Grocery on Broad was created to bring greater access into that “swamp,” and it’s also open to the general public, who may be searching for a better quality grocery store in their neighborhood. Anyone can get a 3% discount just for signing up. Dubow says he does most of his own shopping there.
“We’re not here to replace traditional pantries, but rather we think this is a good supplement around traditional food and healthy food,” Dubow said. “We think it’s part of the solution, it’s not the whole solution.”
To the rescue
In Litchfield County, Colleen Stradtman pulled up in a small SUV in September to pick up produce grown at Judea Garden in the town of Washington. Outfitted in a T-shirt that read ‘Food Rescue US,’ Stradtman was retrieving some precious cargo: flats of vegetables destined for a community kitchen in Litchfield.
Stradtman is just one of Food Rescue’s workers at 43 sites around the country. Founded in 2011 in Stamford, the group rallies volunteers and employees to quickly retrieve food that would otherwise go to waste then rush that food to people in need, mainly via food pantries and community kitchens, before it spoils. That might mean picking up 10 trays of hors d’oeuvres from a catering company when a groom gets cold feet, or rerouting a massive order of blemished produce that was destined for the shelves of a grocery store.
That day in September, Stradtman made stops at a Stop & Shop in Torrington, a small warehouse where local farmers deliver their produce, and Judea Garden. She brought food to a Salvation Army pantry and a community kitchen.
Some loads are small — Stradtman can handle them in her SUV. Others are massive, like the cancellations by big box stores of truckloads of fruit, cancellations that are “freakishly common,” according to James Hart, director of development at Food Rescue US. The quantities can be mind-boggling — a trucker calling up with 38,000 pounds of peaches, for example, when a grocery store chain cancels an order, who faces the prospect of unloading that perfectly edible food into a dump.
Food Rescue provides the logistics and manpower to solve that problem. The group can store those peaches and divide them up among a large group of pantries, since no single location would have the capacity to distribute them before they rot. In the process, Food Rescue is helping to support one of the most challenging missions of modern food pantries: providing clients with fresh produce and protein to supplement the shelf-stable items that are so often donated.
Years ago, Stradtman was going through a divorce. The floor fell out from under her and her children. She had family in the area but at first she turned elsewhere.
“You’re reluctant to reach out. You’re reluctant to say, ‘I’m struggling right now.’ So the first line of defense is to go to the agencies in the area and ask, ‘Is there anything you can do to help just get me through this rough patch?’” Those agencies were there for her. “I could carry on without shame. My kids had no idea, and to this day they have no idea.”
A few months later, Stradtman got a new job, and she stopped relying on those agencies. Today, as a food rescuer, she gives back to people who might find themselves in a similar situation.
“You go to bed at night knowing you did good today.”
Minding the gaps
Some Connecticut organizations are trying to get food to people beyond brick and mortar distribution sites. Mobile pantries have become a lifeline for people living in areas of the state where they may not otherwise have easy access to a pantry. Connecticut Foodshare runs 113 mobile pantries throughout the state, setting up in a farmer’s market-style where clients can select the items they want.
The Stamford-based Person 2 Person food pantry also brings refrigerated trucks to local neighborhoods each week with English and Spanish speaking staff. There, shoppers not only get food but can also be connected to the nonprofit’s wraparound services, like domestic violence and mental health providers.
Filling in the Blanks, a nonprofit based in Norwalk, seeks to address the weekend gap that leaves some children hungry between school-provided meals. On Fridays, the group provides bags of snacks and easy-to-make meals, which are distributed directly to kids at school. Those bags are packed to fit easily into backpacks and can be prepared with minimal cooking supplies. The group now serves children in 11 towns in Connecticut and three in New York.
Have a food insecurity story you think should be explored in this series? Write to ltillman@ctmirror.org.