Huge attendance at Food Insecurity follow-up meeting

 We had more than 20 people present, even before the E-3 Academy stopped by in their ongoing research into food insecurity!

We were very pleased that more than 30 people! attended our April 15 meeting to further the discussion of food insecurity.

Our first monthly meeting since last fall, we followed up the April 8 Northern Berkshire Community Coalition forum on food insecurity with a talk of our own on the subject, including recent trends in the number of participants, better coordination and cooperation among food programs, the response to the closing of Price Chopper, the Massachusetts Food Trust and more.

We had representatives present from the Berkshire Food Project, the food pantry at St. Patrick's in Williamstown, Berkshire Interfaith Organizing, the Berkshire Dream Center, the Letter Carriers Union, New Hope United Methodist Church, Williams College, the Family Center of Child Care of the Berkshires, Adult Basic Ed and several volunteers and board members of the Friendship Center.

We were joined about the half-hour mark by students and teachers of the E-3 alternative education program of the North Adams Public Schools. They are studying food insecurity and have come up with a cookbook using foods frequently available at the Friendship Center. We have mentioned these cookbooks here before but have not had many to give out; we hope to remedy this soon with the help of the program and offer them to our pantry members in the near future.

 Swiped this photo from the Berkshire Interfaith Organizing Facebook page, taken by BIO's associate organizer Jeff Lowenstein.

As usual, we will need plenty of volunteers on Saturday, May 14, to help gather, sort and weigh the food collected in the annual letter carriers food drive. The letter carriers of the North Adams Post Office collect it for the city, Clarksburg and Florida. The Friendship Center leads in the sorting process and we share the results with other programs. If you can help, call the Friendship Center at 413-664-0123 and leave a message.

Since we are getting back into the swing with meetings, we have scheduled another one for May. Our next public meeting will be on Friday, May 20, when Celeste Roeller Harp will make a presentation about the new Age Friendly Berkshires program. Our meetings are held at the First Baptist Church of North Adams, Eagle Street Room, beginning at 10 a.m. All are welcome.

Two more photos from Friday's great meeting: