The Gazette’s series on hunger on the Vineyard is timely and welcome. As the first story points out, food insecurity is a daily reality for many of our friends and neighbors. At the food equity summit in October, many of us came together to look for ways to improve our understanding of the problem and to coordinate our response to it. We will continue this effort.

The Vineyard Committee on Hunger, founded in the 1970s, is an umbrella organization that raises funds, conducts outreach and education and does direct food distribution. The four main beneficiaries of our fundraising are the Island Food Pantry, Meals on Wheels, Serving Hands Food Distribution and the Family to Family holiday meals program.

Three times each year (November, December and March or April), ingredients for holiday meals are given to families in need. Typical packages include a turkey, bags of potatoes, onions, carrots, apples, oranges, spinach, and stuffing mix, winter squash, eggs and cranberry sauce.

The Thanksgiving distribution on Nov. 18 was again a success. More than 50 volunteers distributed meal packages to 250 families, feeding more than 700 hundred of our fellow Islanders including 175 children and 160 seniors.

This year, like every year, we heard heartbreaking stories about the circumstances that led clients to our door. Many of our recipients are elders getting by on tiny fixed incomes. We saw people who have lost their jobs, young families struggling with various kinds of challenges, often on the cusp of homelessness, some people who have been victims of domestic abuse, people on the margins. Family to Family not only gives them a holiday meal, but it also a little bit of hope that hard times will some day end, perhaps a chance to just feel normal for a little while.

This takes money. Our budget is now about $35 per basket, so a quick estimate of the cost per distribution is $8,750. Since we also do distributions at Christmas and Easter, each year we must raise on the order of $25,000 just to stay afloat. We suggest that families that can afford to donate $25, which takes care of most of the cost for another family. All contributions are welcome. One of the best things about this program is that Island families are helping other Islanders.

We will again make sure every family in need has the ingredients for a Christmas dinner on Friday, Dec. 16. Join us in volunteering or help to make this possible by your donations. For information, call 508-693-5339.

Tax-deductible donations can be made payable to Family to Family, and sent to VCOH/Family to Family, P.O. Box 4685, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568.

Betty Burton
Vineyard Haven