Vineyard food organization takes an important step, with new 60K meal goal

EDGARTOWN — Imagine receiving an Island-grown butternut squash in your delivery from the Island Food Pantry. You imagine its potential: butternut squash and carrot soup, oven-roasted squash drizzled with a ribbon of maple syrup, mashed squash with a little sprinkling of nutmeg.

Trouble is, you live in a home with a sub-par kitchen. Maybe there is only a hot plate or microwave, or you don't have the utensils you need to prepare the squash, or maybe the squash is no longer something your aged hands can tackle.

This is a real struggle for many who rely on the pantry, a service of the nonprofit Island Grown Initiative, to put food on their tables. It's the reason the organization's volunteers began putting together prepared meals for clients, starting with soups and stews and expanding to other options such as lasagna and chicken with rice and sides of vegetables, said Executive Director Rebecca Haag.

The task just recently got a whole lot easier with the Initiative's acquisition of Front Porch Catering, a business started by Island chef and food and nutrition educator Jan Buhrman in 1985. Completed in mid-December, the purchase provides the Initiative with its own commercial-grade kitchen.

New kitchen boosts capacity

Now, according to Haag, Island Grown Initiative can hire a full-time chef to oversee the pre-made meal production, providing the service without interruption, year-round, to the pantry's more than 3,200 registered clients

"Until now, we were just borrowing kitchens," Haag said. "We were using the high school kitchen in the summer, we were using the Camp Jabberwocky kitchen in the off-season. And we used her (Buhrman's) kitchen one winter to make soups and stews."

The catering facility, located at the Martha's Vineyard Airport Business Park in Edgartown, comes complete with walk-in freezers and refrigerators, ovens, stoves, pots, pans, utensils, and office and storage space.

"It's fully equipped, and we got a couple of vehicles, because we do deliver meals and groceries," Haag said.

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It will be perfect for continued expansion of the Initiative's pre-made meals service, which Haag said will include vegetarian and vegan options. Having its own commercial kitchen will also make it easier for the organization's volunteers to preserve fresh, Island-grown produce — both grown at its farm on the border of Tisbury and Oak Bluffs and donated from Island farms — for later use. This has been a challenge in the past with in-season crops, such as kale, since "we didn't have the ability to gather that kale, flash freeze it and preserve it," Haag said.

Purchasing a pre-existing kitchen facility is also "a more cost effective solution than building our own." It means the Initiative won't be adding a new footprint with additional wastewater needs to an environment where that is a mounting concern. This is in keeping with the organization's mission to do its work in an environmentally friendly, sustainable manner — its 40-acre farm promotes regenerative farming that avoids tillage to keep root systems intact, and also incorporates redirected food waste to enrich the soil.

Haag said the plan at this time is to use the Kitchen Porch facility for meal preparation only, and then to distribute the meals through the main food pantry located at the Portuguese American Club in Oak Bluffs, through various Councils on Aging and other community organizations, and through delivery.

"We will deliver to folks. A lot of people come directly to the pantry so they can choose their own, but we do have an online ordering service," she said.

Merger allows growing and sharing of food

Island Grown Initiative merged with the Island Food Pantry at the beginning of 2021, providing groceries, protein, produce and dry goods. It began a pilot soup and stews program in 2019, and meals in 2020, initially inspired by the needs of elderly clients.

"We have a significant elderly population," said Haag, explaining many "just don't cook for themselves anymore."

The need for food assistance on the Vineyard has grown significantly, doubling in the last two years.

"What drives that on the Vineyard is the high cost of living, housing prices have gone up, gas prices are up. Food seems to be the one thing families skimp on," she said.

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The Initiative's goal is to create an equitable food program on the Vineyard, which not only includes the pantry and meal service, but also educating people about nutrition and healthy food choices, and about how to grow their own food. The initiative has gardens at the local schools, as well as space for community gardens for those who don't have room for a garden where they live. There are also education programs run in cooperation with the schools, a local seed-saving and sharing effort, and the organization has started working with the local health care center to teach people about using foods for prevention.

The farm, which produced 80,000 pounds of produce last summer, provides Island-grown food of higher nutritional value, which is coupled with donations from other growers, as well as from local fishermen. Even local hunters help out.

"We just finished the deer season over here," said Haag, explaining some venison was donated to the Initiative. "People love that. We made chili with venison. We did venison stew, you could get a pound of venison at the pantry. A lot of the elder people really love it. It reminds them of a time when things were simpler."

Acknowledging the large Brazilian population on the Island, she said the organization has been experimenting with planting some Brazilian produce, and there are plans to incorporate Brazilian-inspired meals.

Adding ethnic cuisine

"We're really focused on eradicating food insecurity on the island. Every part of the island is trying to contribute. People who use the pantry are us — working families on the Vineyard and people who just can't make ends meet," Haag said. "It takes a community to feed people and this community has certainly stepped up."

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In 2023, the Initiative plans to make more than 60,000 meals, prepared at the Kitchen Porch facility and distributed through the pantry, Councils of Aging, schools, churches, and other community-based organizations with assistance from its legion of about 200 volunteers, who help with duties at the pantry, harvesting at the farm, cooking and deliveries.

For Buhrman, who was one of the founding members of the Island Grown Initiative in 2004, the sale of her catering business to the organization allows her to find ways she can work with the community and give back, she said.

“The plan is to live simpler, teach and write about the process of learning these models and to support the work of IGI in any way I can," she said.

Haag and others at the Initiative are grateful for the opportunity.

“We now have a year-round commercial kitchen for IGI’s food equity programs without facing a long and expensive building project,” she said. “And Jan has the opportunity to step away from catering and focus on her food education work through workshops, newsletters and lectures.”

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Island Grown Initiative buys kitchen in Edgartown, sets 60K meal goal