City of Salem Directs ARPA Funds to Food Security

“The ability for Salem residents to access healthy food is incredibly important and was identified in our ARPA surveys as one of the most critical needs facing our community at the moment,” said Mayor Kim Driscoll. “While we are making new investments through ARPA in supporting our food security efforts, I am proud as well of the incredible work that we have undertaken over the past years to address these issues already. The availability of these federal resources now enables us to go even further to invest in solutions to our food security challenges. I’m grateful to the members of the ARPA stakeholder group, our community partners, and the City staff who have all helped advance this important work.”

Mack Park Food Farm: $94,105

This phase of work on the Mack Park Food Farm would include replacement of the parking lot, improvement of drainage, adding accessibility upgrades, and a new pathway to the edible forest. These changes will improve access to food for the community by providing better and more accessible connections to the community farm, stand, and edible forest for everyone. In addition, the funding will also support the construction of raised beds around the perimeter of the farm, which will enable the site to grow even more food.

“The Mack Park Farm has become an important resource not just for improving food security, but also for engaging the community on sustainable growing,” said Matt Buchanan of the Mack Park Food Farm. “The funding we receive will allow us to expand our growing space to provide substantially more food for Salem residents and also make accessibility improvements to ensure all residents are able to enjoy the space.”

Mayor Jean Levesque Community Life Center kitchen: $140,000

The Mayor Jean Levesque Community Life Center (CLC) is a hub of activity for seniors, families, and youth, and houses the City’s Council on Aging, Veterans Services, and Recreation departments. More Salem residents could benefit from programs and meals at the CLC if the existing kitchen is enhanced to a commercial kitchen grade. Currently, prepared congregate meals are delivered and served by a contracted vendor. This project will enable the CLC team to cook and prepare healthy meals on site, providing more nutritious options not only for seniors, but all CLC users of all ages, to foster a greater sense of community and activity at this important community facility.

“The staff of the Levesque Community Life Center is excited to begin the enhancement of the CLC kitchen,” said Teresa Arnold, director of the Council on Aging. “To be able to provide more nutrition education in collaboration with the Health Department and offer additional healthy food choices to seniors and others aligns with Salem’s efforts toward food security for all.”

Salem Food for All: $28,000

This funding will be used to support and expand a number of existing and successful food access programs carried out by Salem Food for All, the City’s food policy council. These include $8,000 for the next several “Meet and Eat” community meals and $6,000 to add a second Meet and Eat meals site, $7,000 for the Salem Summer Meals program for children in the community, and $7,000 for additional meals through the Salem Pantry Mobile Market. In all, the funds would provide close to 3,000 meals for Salem’s most needy children and families over the remainder of the calendar year.

“Salem Food for All members have been working together since 2016 to create programs and policies to improve food access for Salem residents,” said Kerry Murphy, chair of Salem Food for All. “Our collaborations became vitally important during the pandemic where members like Root, The Salem Pantry and Salem Public Schools partnered on mobile markets, meal deliveries and ‘grab & go’ meal sites to ensure that Salem’s most vulnerable populations, children and older adults, were not going hungry. This ARPA funding will allow these programs to continue and expand as rising food prices continue to cause challenges for many Salem residents.”

Root Culinary Job Training: $63,100

Root is a nonprofit youth job training program in Salem that helps prepare at-risk and other community youth with essential job skills and workforce training in the culinary and hospitality fields. This funding will be used for a wide variety of program needs, from equipment and supplies to transportation support for students, for the rest of 2022.

“Root is excited to continue to partner with the City of Salem to provide critical job training for local young people, to help build the workforce pipeline to support the vital and vibrant restaurant industry in the city, and address ongoing food insecurity issues in our community,” said Allison Caffrey, Root’s Executive Director.

Salem Pantry: $266,000

Funding for the Salem Pantry will support the construction of the organization’s first brick-and-mortar storefront, including $75,000 for equipment and build-out costs, as well as an additional $186,000 in capital costs for the expansion of the pantry’s mobile market to purchase a farmer’s truck enabling more pop-up distributions. An additional $5,000 has been awarded to the Salem Pantry through the City’s ARPA-funded festival and special events grant program for the Pantry’s “Ride for Food” community event this summer at Winter Island.

“Funding through ARPA will support The Salem Pantry’s new brick and mortar storefront location and provide for key improvements to our mobile market program,” said Robyn Burns, director of the Salem Pantry. “We are grateful to the ARPA team and Mayor Driscoll for the continued collaboration and investment in Salem becoming a more food secure community.” 

“While these are major investments in our food security efforts,” said Mayor Driscoll, “they only represent the initial phase of these measures. Our ARPA allocations are guided by public input gathered from the stakeholder advisory group, public forums, and resident survey. But we’re also committed to being responsive to the efficacy of programs; we will consistently evaluate and measure how these initiatives work and, in future phases of Salem’s ARPA allocations, respond accordingly based on those results and the changing context of our local food security needs.”

About Salem’s Food Security Programs

The City of Salem has a strong history of supporting policies and programs to end childhood hunger, which became even more prevalent during the pandemic. In 2017 Mayor Driscoll convened the Salem Food Policy Council, later renamed “Salem Food for All,” to coordinate a community-based response to food insecurity and leverage partnerships with existing stakeholders to make the most meaningful difference possible.

Salem Public Schools provides every student with free breakfast and lunch during the school year through the Community Eligibility Provision, eliminating the need to fill out applications or paperwork, as well as the stigma associated with school lunch debt. The City has also been an advocate for Project Bread’s School Meals for All, a bill that, if passed, will ensure every public school student in Massachusetts receives free breakfast and lunch during the school year. The Salem Public Schools have been a sponsor of the USDA’s Summer Eats program for nearly two decades, to ensure that children have access to healthy meals during the summer months. In 2014, Mayor Driscoll was awarded a grant through the Eos Foundation to hire a Summer Meals Program Manager to expand and promote the program by partnering with other community organizations.

Mayor Driscoll also spearheaded a community meals program for families, the Salem Meet & Eat, which was a need identified in the Salem Community Food Assessment. A public school cafeteria hosts a free monthly meal for Salem residents provided by Root, a local culinary education program for teens and young adults. This continues as a “grab and go” style meal due to COVID restrictions.

In March of 2020, as schools and cafeterias closed due to the pandemic, the Salem school district didn’t miss a single day of providing meals to children. School buses delivered breakfasts and lunches to bus stops and city parks during the school closure, providing enough meals for seven days a week, including school vacations. In all the schools distributed between 50,000 and 75,000 “grab and go” meals each month during the school closure. In addition to that, the Salem Pantry distributed about 75,000 pounds of food per month during 2021 for all residents, not just children.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Mayor Driscoll mobilized City employees as COVID team leaders, with food insecurity as a priority. The City worked closely with local food assistance organizations, restaurants and community volunteers to ensure that our most vulnerable populations, children and seniors, did not go hungry. And, to supplement the work of food assistance organizations, Mayor Driscoll approved the purchase of grocery store gift cards that were distributed to families facing hardship due to the pandemic.

The City of Salem provided financial assistance to local food assistance organizations like The Salem Pantry and Root. The Salem Pantry was able to dramatically expand their services from two mobile market locations to 14, including schools and low-income housing sites, providing weekly groceries to hundreds of Salem children and their families. The Salem Pantry now serves an average of 600 children every month. Root used City of Salem funding to provide extra meals for families at school lunch sites as well as the Salem Summer Eats sites. Root’s community food assistance also included 5,000 meals specifically for Salem youth. Also during the pandemic, the City sought and received a state grant to hire laid-off restaurant workers to prepare packaged meals that were also provided to the Salem Summer Eats sites during the summer of 2020.

A municipal farm project, the Mack Park Farm, began its first growing season in the spring of 2020. Operated by the City of Salem with the assistance of volunteers, the farm has grown over 12,000 pounds of fresh produce that was provided to Salem families free of charge. In addition to food assistance, the project also aims to educate youth on the benefits of growing and eating healthy food, hosting school groups and offering volunteer opportunities for all ages. It has been held up as a national model by the Mayor’s Innovation Project, as a program to help leverage City land to address local food insecurity.

Lastly, earlier this year Mayor Driscoll became one of the founding members of the new nationwide coalition called the Mayors Alliance to End Childhood Hunger, galvanizing efforts on a larger scale to improve access to healthy food and combat childhood hunger in communities around the country.

About ARPA in Salem

ARPA provides much needed funds to respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the negative economic affects that came with it. Salem has taken a thoughtful approach to utilizing this funding and have worked intentionally with stakeholders to identify both short- and long-term approaches that will best aid our response and recovery efforts. Salem is ready to respond strategically to deviations in the pandemic’s course, to ensure an equitable recovery, and to make transformative, positive change in the many areas of concern that impact the lives and livelihoods of Salem residents. The City has already announced major allocations of ARPA funds toward critical City capital needs (www.salemma.gov/recovery/news/city-salem-directs-arpa-funds-capital-needs), business and worker recovery measures (www.salemma.gov/recovery/news/city-salem-directs-arpa-funds-business-and-workforce-recovery), and transportation projects (www.salemma.gov/recovery/news/city-salem-directs-arpa-funds-transportation-needs), with additional announcements coming over the next weeks. Find out more about ARPA in Salem at www.salemma.gov/recovery.