Putnam County rolls out mobile food pantry
Shelves filled with containers of ripe strawberries, heads of cabbage and bunches of kale. Blue bins stuffed with freshly harvested apples, carrots, corn and peaches.
For two hours on Wednesday morning (July 10), St. Mary’s Church in Cold Spring hosted Cornell Cooperative Extension of Putnam County’s latest strategy for feeding “food-insecure” residents: a mobile food pantry that stops at locations in Philipstown and other areas of the county.
Without paperwork or questions, residents can stock up on vegetables, fruits, eggs, meats and other products from local farms, including Glynwood in Philipstown and Longhaul in Garrison.
A $2 million grant from the state’s New York Food for New York Families program allows Cornell Cooperative to purchase food from the farms and pay Meals on Main Street, a Westchester County organization that for years has operated a mobile food pantry, for distribution, said Ruby Koch-Fienberg, the organization’s ag and food systems coordinator.
On paper, Putnam County is affluent, but data confirms that many of its residents need assistance with food, she said. Having a mobile pantry is another way to feed those residents while supporting local farms.
Read our series: Hunger in the Highlands
Wednesday’s stop at St. Mary’s was the truck’s second of the day after first visiting the Brookside Park mobile home community on Route 9 and before stopping at the Philipstown Senior Center in the village.
Other stops include the senior centers in Carmel and Putnam Valley, the Patterson Library and the Putnam Lake Fire Department. More than 60 people visited the truck when it stopped Monday at the Putnam Valley Library, said Koch-Fienberg.
“There’s no needs testing,” she said. “If you come to the truck, you can take what you need.”
More people in Dutchess and Putnam should be doing just that, according to data released in May by Feeding America, a network of food banks.
Ten percent of Dutchess County residents and 8 percent in Putnam did not always have access to enough food in 2022, the organization said. Its network includes the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley, which distributes to the Philipstown Food Pantry and other local programs.
The federal government defines food insecurity as “the lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life.” Dutchess had 29,700 food-insecure residents, including 6,620 children, in 2022, while Putnam County had 8,270, including 1,270 children. Both counties experienced increases from 2021.
The mobile food pantry makes three local stops on Wednesdays:
8:45 – 9:30 a.m. Brookside Park, Treeline Circle, Philipstown
10 a.m. – noon St. Mary’s Church, 1 Chestnut St., Cold Spring
12:45 – 1:15 p.m. Philipstown Senior Center, 6 Butterfield Road, Cold Spring
Some of those families may have incomes low enough that they struggle to afford rent and other basic needs, but high enough to disqualify them from receiving assistance from food pantries or similar programs, said Koch-Fienberg.
“It’s a pretty wide spectrum of folks that are accessing food from the truck,” she said. “There’s a lot of misconceptions of what people who need food might look like.”
