First, a huge shout out to Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley who volunteered with our COVID-19 Relief Grocery Delivery program on Thursday. She brought great joy to the volunteers working beside her, and with the media attention, helped raise further awareness of the growing issue of hunger during this pandemic. She was all smiles, and in addition to her hands-on help, her team donated much needed canned proteins.

As you may know, we first launched this program on March 17. This was an emergency response to the school closures and quickly expanded to support the closure of the Senior Center and local food pantries. It has been a truly amazing initiative, bringing in 50 to 80 volunteers a day and, at its peak, delivering food to 2,000 households. None of this could have been done without the support of the City of Cambridge, the Council on Aging, the hundreds of volunteers, and the financial contributions we’ve received.

As we learn more about this pandemic, we’ve come to understand that many of the households on our list, made up of seniors and immunocompromised individuals, will remain at significant risk from COVID-19 for the foreseeable future. In response, we have been planning the best way to support these people longer term. Beginning the week of June 29, we will merge our COVID-19 Relief Grocery Delivery program into our long established Home Delivery Program.

Since 2001, Food For Free’s Home Delivery program has delivered fresh and nonperishable food to income-eligible individuals in Cambridge who are unable to access a food pantry due to illness or disability, and who do not have someone who can pick up food for them. We will expand the qualifications to include seniors without disabilities as well as immunocompromised individuals.

We currently serve 160 individuals through our Home Delivery and anticipate this merge to expand the program to anywhere from 400 to 800 households. We are notifying all households on our COVID-19 Relief Grocery Delivery program next week and will allow anyone to call the hotline to apply to be transitioned to Home Delivery in July. In the meantime, we are working with the City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Food Pantry Network to ensure there is sufficient access to food once our relief program sunsets at the end of June. This will include helping other food pantries reopen, and creating numerous new Summer Markets.

At the same time, we continue to support food programs in Somerville and throughout Greater Boston. We’ve kicked off partnerships with the Boston Area Gleaners and Costa Produce to collect and distribute over 4,000 bags of fresh, regional produce beginning next week. We’ve been working with The Greater Boston Food Bank to secure pantry boxes made up by wholesale distributors, and we’re collecting and distributing delicious meals from Harvard University Dining Services and the Seaport Hotel.

Thanks for being with us through this journey!