Annual Report 2023

Ten years ago, 146 individuals, many of whom may be reading this today, made an investment in the future of a small, relatively new, not-for-profit organization called Caritas of Port Chester, Inc..

The future vision of that organization was clear. In order to be able to continue to feed the hungry in Port Chester, this organization wanted to purchase and renovate a building near the downtown church where it was preparing and serving meals, and where it was offering food and clothing weekly to local residents in need of help.

The plan was to use the new space for “choice food pantry, permanent clothes distribution and conference/classroom space.” The kitchen in the church, which was recently renovated, would continue to be the site of the soup kitchen.

The initial capital campaign approved by the board would have two phases. The first phase would be “to purchase and cover the costs of the closing with the goal of $350,000, [and] to develop the property with a goal of $600,000.”

New Headquarters building nearing completion.

I bring this up because those 146 people and 6 board members had the vision for a dedicated home office and partnership with local organizations (in this case a church) to provide service to the community “in a dignified manner.” It is that commitment to offer support with dignity and respect that drives all our decisions.

And one of our early decisions was to focus on food, recognizing that the offerings of clothing and education were being provided by others within the village. This was the beginning of our strategy to partner rather than compete, enabling us to work together as a community.

We are blessed to have so many of you who were with us in the early days remain with us today and we are overjoyed to have so many new believers in the vision who have joined to help us become even better at what we do, bringing everyone together to create opportunities to build community to share a meal and sit at table together.

Starting line for Miles For MOMS race in October.

I look at 2024 as the starting line for the race that we have been preparing to run over the past 10 years. Finally, we will have a headquarters building we can be proud to call home. It will be a gathering place, an inviting and active place, worthy of the love and commitment all of you have shown, during these, our most uncertain and surprising years.

We can prepare for whatever challenge the future brings by staying committed to meeting the needs of those who come to us for help. Then our future selves will look back at today’s decisions and say, “Job well done.”

Everything we do needs to be implemented with the understanding that the future organization is not what we envision it to be today, but what we create together along the way. Your support, whether you have been with us all along the way, or just joined us today, is what got us here. And our goal is make sure that the investment you made in this amazing organization is something you will continue to be proud of for years to come.

If you have any questions, drop me a line at Director@MealsOnMainStreet.org, and we can talk about it over coffee.

Best,

Bill Cusano

MOMS Vision

Build Community Through Food

Our combination of custom-designed mobile pantry trucks and portable food hubs allow us to supplement the work of local pantries and soup kitchens to deliver recovered food and farm-fresh produce to families in need where they live.

MOMS Goal

Provide access to healthy meals, better food choices and farm-fresh produce for all in need

MOMS Actions:

Port Chester is our home base, and in 2023:
We expanded our distribution coverage within the village, from 6 to 18 locations with two mobile pantry trucks.
We continue to provide meals from our kitchens and distribute them through our pantry partners.
We expanded our food recovery program by 55%, collecting over 50,000 pounds per month and making the logistics of gathering and distributing food a major part of our ongoing operations.
Separate from our food recovery program, we obtained funding to acquire over 59,000 pounds of food direct from local farms.
Today, nearly three-quarters of all the food we distribute is donated from local supermarkets, organizations, businesses, schools and individuals, allowing us to apply our resources to providing jobs and training within the community we support.
Our combination of custom-designed mobile pantry trucks and portable food hubs allow us to supplement the work of local pantries and soup kitchens to deliver recovered food and farm-fresh produce to families in need where they live.
Partnering with Feeding Westchester, we implemented a food recovery program in August which is targeted to salvage over 500,000 pounds of perishable food which would have gone into landfills. The program grew from 6 supermarket locations to over 20 by year end and it will continue to grow in 2023.
MOMS opens its first volunteer-run pantry in partnership with AGWV Church and The Friendly Fridge Network. The MOMS Provisions Pantry is open Saturdays and distributes to over 100 families per week.
MOMS goes mobile with Pop-Up pantries, resulting in a five-fold increase of groceries going directly to food insecure neighborhoods.
MOMS developed an extensive food recovery network, eliminating waste and securing quality perishable goods for our clientele.
MOMS sets up our first Food Hub, allowing our partners to come to us when they need food and to give us their excess food which we distribute to other agencies within 48 hours.
MOMS constructs a virtual platform for clientele to shop online for a weekly at home delivery.
MOMS expanded our pioneering project with restaurants, purchasing meals directly from them at cost and distributing them via our programs.
MOMS secures shares in local and regional farms, providing farm to table produce.
MOMS supports New York State Contact Tracing by supplying groceries and meals to residents quarantined for Covid infection or exposure.
MOMS continues our collaboration with BOCES, utilizing their chefs and students to make trays of prepared foods.

2023 Accomplishments

Our four methods of delivering food to families in need make it possible for anyone in Port Chester to have access to healthy food choices.
Our Mobile Pantry Trucks now routinely visit 18 locations in the village, while
Our Home Deliveries provide meals and groceries to 50 families who do not have access or time to visit a pantry site.
Our cooperative pantry at the church on King Street, the Provisions Pantry, is an example of establishing outposts operated by local volunteers.
And finally, our kitchen provides meals to The Carver Center and The Salvation Army for distribution to their pantry customers.
Thanks to the enormous support of our donors, what we’ve accomplished in just two years ensures that no one need go hungry in Port Chester. And now we are positioned to help do this everywhere.
With financial support from Westchester County, Westchester Community Foundation and Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, we are able to maintain a food hub in Northern Westchester which is used to serve the local communities and receive fresh produce from local farms during the growing season. Shares in local farms are made possible by grants from Episcopal Charities and individual donors through our Community Supported Agriculture Program.
Our Mobile Pantry Trucks make 4 visits per week at locations predominantly serving seniors and we do that with support from Field Hall Foundation. The program focuses on the needs of seniors, providing them with the ability to select the food they want from a variety of fresh produce, dairy, meats and prepared meals. Neighbors are encouraged to bring food to those who are shut in.
Our donor base now stretches across Westchester County, and so do we.
MOMS cultivated relationships to help existing pantries, soup kitchens and outreach organizations to ensure that food continues to flow to families in need. During COVID, many closed.
Working with Feeding Westchester, we are trying to revive them and help make them sustainable. In addition, we have established new partnerships and enhanced older ones in Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Somers, Croton-on-Hudson, White Plains, Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown and Ossining.
MOMS doubled its food recovery efforts in 2023, adding more drivers and pickups from supermarkets throughout the county. We have been able to increase the volume of food by over 50%, and that volume continues to increase. According to Feeding Westchester, which provides access to the supermarkets in their network, there is approximately another 3 million pounds of donated food available for pickup across the county, and all it costs is the labor and fuel to go get it. We have become experts at recovering and turning around thousands of pounds of food per week within 48-72 hours of receipt. That means less food goes to waste and more families get fed.
What makes MOMS so unique is its willingness to take a risk, to try out new ideas, and to continue working them until they are successful. That means making changes often and with the involvement of the whole team. The ideas come from the staff, working everyday within the communities we serve, getting to know the needs of the people we serve, and finding ways to meet those needs.
Because we were able to take the lead during the pandemic, developing a streamlined way to keep food flowing to those in need, we are able to share what we’ve learned and pass along savings to smaller pantries that don’t have access to the support and talent we have. By making it easy for volunteers and community groups to pop-up a pantry in their community, beginning with a visit from one of our mobile pantry trucks, we can plant the seeds of organic growth and support for the feeding programs of tomorrow. By supporting MOMS, you become part of a growing network that is making a real impact.
Thanks to grants from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, home cooking by Westchester Reformed Temple, donations of food and pies from schools throughout the region, and the financial support raised at our Miles For MOMS Fun Run in October, we were able to provide turkeys, chickens, bags of fixings and holiday meals to families throughout the county.

Early in the year, we had two kitchens running full time, allowing us to produce over 16,000 meals per month. By mid-year, however, we lost the use of one of the kitchens and lost the use of our stove and one of our ovens in the other. All the meals from July on have been produced using only one electric convection oven and electric rice cookers. We are anxious to get into our new production kitchen in early 2024.

Building a Sustainable System

Understanding the food distribution system from farm-to-table

Farm-to-Table. Its an expression we have all heard before, and for many it means farm fresh food delivered to your kitchen with little delay. The quicker it gets to the table, the fresher it is. But there are many steps in the process of harvesting, collecting, packing, shipping, receiving, sorting, redirecting, reshipping, the list goes on…

Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in Cold Spring, NY.

According to an article published in The New York Post back in November of 2022, local farmers in New York and New Jersey are struggling to stay viable due to increasing labor costs and competition from farms in states like Georgia where the minimum wage for farm workers is much lower. But it is expensive to live and work here, so what is a farmer or business owner to do?

There are organizations working with farmers to help them be more productive and profitable, showing them how to manage their finances, how to budget, how to properly price their products and how to market them to make the sale. MOMS is working with two of these organizations, Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in Cold Spring, NY and Cornell Cooperative Extension with local office throughout the state.

A few of the programs offered by Cornell Cooperative Extension to help farmers.

During the pandemic, when restaurants were struggling because people were sheltered in place, MOMS partnered with several local restaurants to purchase food for meals, covering the cost of food and labor, so the restaurants could continue to pay their employees. The restaurants didn’t make any profit on the arrangement, but they were glad to keep their employees on the payroll.

Creative solutions like this are what have come to symbolize the MOMS approach, and the same is true for the amazing folks at Glynwood and Cornell. Through Glynwood and the Food Sovereignty Fund, we have built relationships with farms in Northern Westchester and Orange County, and Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) is connecting us with farms in Westchester through their local office, and Putnam County through their office in Brewster.

Working Together

The latter is part of an innovative program developed by New York State and we are thankful to have been selected to work with CCE in providing the food distribution component of this aggressive program.

“The New York Food for New York Families Program will maintain and improve food and agricultural supply chain resiliency in New York State. This funding is provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA). The goals of this program are to:

Support local and traditionally disadvantaged farmers/producers by building and expanding economic opportunities and creating new marketing channels.
Establish and broaden partnerships between New York farmers/producers and the food distribution community and local food networks to ensure distribution of fresh nutritious foods in rural, remote, and/or underserved areas.
Improve food access for underserved communities by tailoring distribution to unique local challenges.”

One of our Mobile Pantry Trucks will be assigned to the program, helping to distribute farm fresh produce and dairy to communities in need throughout the region. This is a two year program and we will be working with CCE to identify opportunities to keep it going.

Sustainability

We have been very successful over the past four years in obtaining grant funding to kickstart our amazing programs, but keeping them going and growing has been the work of our donors, sponsors and volunteers. Spreading the word and creating fun and meaningful events to share our goals and mission has been the work of our governing bodies, our Executive Board, Auxiliary Board, and our newest addition, the MOMS Junior Board, comprised of students committed to the cause of eliminating food insecurity in our communities.

Creating a sustainable system of food distribution takes more than funding. It takes ingenuity and willingness to change at the grassroots level within every city, town and village. Our hope is to generate excitement about sharing and working together in each neighborhood to provide the best quality and healthiest food to anyone who needs it.

Many of the communities in need of help have very little or no funding. They cannot afford to buy food to share, nor can they afford to go get donated food where it is available and keep it fresh long enough to distribute it. For these small volunteer-operated programs, the gap between what they can do and what they need to do to make a difference is widening. More and more people are coming to them in their houses of worship and community centers looking for enough food to prepare the main meal of the day, and they don’t have the resources to help them.

MOMS is helping to fill that gap by taking the burden off their shoulders, allowing them to focus on handing out food, preparing meals in their kitchens, and delivering nutritious care packages to the homebound in their communities. We know the hunger problem cannot be solved by one organization working alone. But one one organization can take the lead in raising the grassroots support needed to help everyone be successful together.

The individual meals and trays of food we will be producing in our new commercial kitchen will help soup kitchens and pantries across the county and beyond provide healthy lunches and suppers for thousands where they live. Just as our mobile pantry trucks go out to neighborhoods, community centers and schoolyards to meet the people where they are, so too will our catering truck and volunteers deliver ready-to-serve food for local groups to serve in community diningrooms or shelters.

This is what we refer to as the “Last Mile” of food distribution, and it can be the most expensive mile in the system, since it requires labor to unpack and sort the donations and purchases, prepare the meals or bins of food, and drive it to where it needs to go.

Volunteers at Redemption Church preparing sandwich boxes for distribution to the homeless and hungry in Port Chester.

A Cooperative Approach

During the pandemic, we worked with other pantries to separate our responsibilities, with each organization focusing on a particular task. We arranged for the acquisition and storage of the food, while others bagged it and delivered it to people’s homes, and others still offered it to people who came to their pantry.

Mobile Pantry distribution in Port Chester.

Loading the trunk with bags of groceries and meals for home delivery.

This sharing of responsibilities gave us an idea. What if we continued to collect the food and make it available to any community that wanted to help distribute it to local families in need?

In addition to our mobile pantry trucks which take the fresh food to where the people live, we would start partnering with small volunteer groups that could not afford to collect and store food, but had the resources to distribute it. They know the people they serve, and that makes it a sustainable solution.

Greater Access To Food

Food Banks collect food in bulk and redistribute to pantries and soup kitchens that have the ability to store it. Even if that storage time is one day, it requires fridges and freezers, as well as racks and shelves, and enough staff or volunteers to receive and organize the food. What if these volunteers didn’t need all that and could receive what they need just-in-time for their distribution?

This is the vision we have for a sustainable system. The food never stops moving from farm-to-table. At each pick-up and drop-off, someone is there to take it to the next stop in the process. At MOMS, we know that the last link in the chain is the most critical, because the food cannot keep moving if it has no place to go. There are over 300 pantries and soup kitchens in Westchester alone, so there is no shortage of outlets for the food. Volunteer organizations that move food to these locations, like our partners, County Harvest and Feeding Westchester, have to deliver when the food is available. What we do that is different is to bring our pantry truck to distribute directly or provide the food just in time for the scheduled distribution.

MOMS mission is to build community through food, and what better way to get people to work together than to supply them with the tools to make a difference?

Feeding The Economy - The Big Picture from Farm-to-Table

JOBS OR FOOD?

According to FeedingTheEconomy.com, the agriculture industry’s impact to the economy includes the creation of over 1.2 million jobs here in New York State and over 23 million across the country. And that is just the jobs directly involved in the farming and distribution of food at every level of the food chain. Add indirect jobs, those created by the businesses that support the industry and the number doubles.
[Click on the image to visit the site and download the report by state.]
For the families we serve, jobs provide the path to self-sufficiency, allowing people to offer their families hope for the future. At MOMS, we have transformed the food distribution business into something far better than a charitable handout. We have created a model where dignity and respect changes lives as much, if not more, than the food we offer nourishes them.
Now, as we grow, we have created jobs. Who better to serve the community than those who live there? The future we see for the food and agriculture industries is one where nothing goes to waste, everyone involved makes a fair salary for a decent day’s work, and no one in the community goes hungry.

Pantry Operations Programs

694,000 out of the total of 777,000 pounds of food distributed in 2023 was donated by local supermarkets and businesses. If we had to purchase all of the food we collect and distribute, our food costs would more than triple. This allows us to feed more people for less cost.

The impact of our mobile pantry operation represents the number of households served by visitors to our mobile pantry trucks. The number of adults, children and elderly making up those households is also shown.

Food Service Operations (Meals) Impact 2016-2023

The food service operations cooks and delivers meals in two packaged forms, individual meals and family-style meals. The family-style packages contain five meals per family.

What’s Ahead in 2024?

With the opening of our new building, we will finally be able to get back to our roots, but in a new and exciting way!

Our volunteer program will kick off in the Spring and will be in full swing by the Summer, offering opportunities for families to get involved in fun and meaningful ways. In addition, we will be looking to invite everyone to the table with community dinners at various locations around town, and special mini-events at our headquarters.

Your support has made all this possible, so we hope to see you soon. Every year has been truly amazing and we have you to thank for that. Together we are doing something truly special, but you know that. We began growing this organization over a decade ago in the hope that we could make a difference in our community. Who could have imagined how big a difference that would become?

Together we are Meals On Main Street. And anyone who sees our logo knows they can get quality food with dignity and respect. How great is that?

Thank you for all you do and please keep doing it. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep abreast of all the ways you can get involved. We don’t want you to miss out on anything!

Annual Report 2023