Waterbury Mutual Aid–along with the rest of the nation’s food support community–learned on Friday that the USDA’s popular Farmers to Families (F2F) food box program will have its current phase of funding extended through the end of May, but then that will be the end of the program. We also learned that many of the gatekeeper organizations in CT that were receiving F2F trucks don’t want to participate in the extension.
As a result, Waterbury Mutual Aid is currently expecting to receive at least one F2F truck in the month of May. Each truck contains 1,260 boxes of mixed groceries weighing over 30 lbs. each. Our climate-controlled trailer can store boxes safely for up to 10 days, so we will organize a series of distribution events. More information as it becomes available
April 24 F2F food box distribution event
In under 3 hours, WMA, our volunteers and partners distributed almost 400 F2F boxes to individuals and small, grassroots organizations. In addition to 111 in our Food Support Network, we brought about 100 to two nearby housing complexes and shared more than 100 with allied groups in Waterbury. Only one non-Waterbury group participated in this distribution as we had shared with most of them earlier in the week.
In April, WMA secured and distributed a total of 1,144 F2F boxes. About 75% were distributed in Waterbury, and 25% we shared with allied organizations in Hartford, Bridgeport, Middlebury, Mansfield and Meriden.
Waterbury Mutual Aid 