The Good Shepherd Food Bank is working with regional partners across Maine to bring together local experts and identify solutions to their region’s unique food access challenges with the goal of closing the meal gap. In the fall of 2019, the Good Shepherd Food Bank invited Healthy Acadia to support their efforts to launch a community strategies project in Washington County.

As part of the project, requests for funding proposals were solicited from local actors and organizations to develop creative solutions to fight hunger at the local level. Throughout the long and difficult months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, a team of community actors have continued to work behind the scenes to help make big dreams come true for local food security organizations. The final grants were recently announced.

The Community Focused Strategies team would like to congratulate the following organizations for their successful proposals to end efforts to end hunger in Washington County:

Christine B Foundation: Food costs associated with the Christine B. Foundation home delivery program for immunocompromised patients;

Healthy Acadia: to support staff who work to maintain and continue the community networking efforts of food safety organizations, including quarterly meetings;

Machias Food Pantry: construction costs for a new and expanded pantry;

Maine Seacoast Mission: expenses associated with their Family Food Center model

Town of Danforth Food Pantry: Creation of Last-Mile Solutions to better serve seniors and other community members.

Thanks to the wonderful generosity of the Good Shepherd Food Bank and additional funding from the Washington County Food and Fuel Alliance, a total of $ 190,000 has been awarded. “We are excited to support these innovative approaches to bridging the meal gap,” said Shannon Coffin, Vice President of Community Partnerships at Good Shepherd and responsible for this project. “Thank you all for your comments and your support for this project over the past 16 months; we look forward to continuing to work with all of you to end hunger relief efforts in the future. “

“It has been an honor to work with the Good Shepard Food Bank in this way over the past 18 months,” said Regina Grabrovac, community organizer for the project and manager of the Healthy Acadia food program. “The resulting synergies, collaborations and creativity will go a long way in greatly increasing this region’s ability to nurture our community.

Hunger is so much more complex than we often recognize. Making food more accessible is only one aspect of reducing poverty. We must continue to ask questions of those living in poverty – what are your needs and how can we do better? Ending hunger is a goal within a complex web that includes addressing all aspects of poverty. “

For more information on the Community-Driven Strategies project, to be placed on the Food Safety electronic mailing list, or for information on other food safety efforts in Washington County, contact Regina Grabrovac at [email protected].

Healthy Acadia is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit that engages in a wide range of initiatives to build healthier communities and make it easier for people to lead healthy lives in Washington counties and of Hancock, Maine. Learn more about www.healthyacadia.org.

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