October 5, 2024 • 11 mins
With many adults in Massachusetts struggling with food insecurity, Daily Table has set up several non-profit grocery stores in Greater Boston to try and connect families with fresh, healthy food at a price that won't break the bank account. One of their most popular programs provides shoppers on SNAP with a significant discount on fruits and vegetables, but that program has unexpectedly been stopped. Sasha Purpura, CEO of Daily Table, talks with Nichole this week about what happened and how the community can help make sure everyone can stay nourished.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend,
where each and every week we come together right here
we talk about all the topics important to you and
the place where you live. It is so good to
be back with you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis.
One out of every three adults in Massachusetts are struggling
right now to put food on the table. Any base
Staters are living in what are called food deserts. Those
(00:30):
are areas where fresh produce is tough to find. Daily
Table has set up nonprofit grocery stores all over Greater
Boston for many years. Their mission has been simple, get tasty, fresh,
and nutritious food in the hands of as many people
as possible without breaking their bank. One of the most
popular programs that the stores has come to a screeching halt,
and now they're reaching out to their neighbors to get
(00:51):
some help. CEO Sasha Propora is here to talk with
us about this. Sasha, it is great to have you
on board. Before we get into what's happening, tell us
a bit more about Daily Table.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Daily Table The first store opened in twenty sixteen in
Codman Square in Dorchester, and the organization was founded by
the pest president of Trader Joe's North America, Doug Row,
and he had retired from Trader Joe's and gone on
to a program at Harvard and Advanced Leadership Initiative to
figure out how could he do good in the world,
What could he do that, what might make a difference,
(01:23):
And Daily Table was born out of that. The idea is,
there are so many people out there that cannot afford
healthy food. They want to feed their families healthy food.
They are not going to go to a food pantry
because they want to care for their families and care
for themselves. But the reality today is healthy food is expensive,
and doug wanted to create a shopping experience with dignity
(01:48):
where people could feel good, come in and not only
have access to tremendous amount of fruits, vegetables, proteins, but
at affordable prices. So to really give people the option
to on their own choose what they wanted and buy
healthy food. We feel like healthy food is the cheapest
(02:09):
answer to healthcare. If you eat healthy food, you grow
up healthy, you have healthy communities. So Daily Table was
about creating an affordable access to healthy food with a
dignified shopping experience where people can choose for themselves.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Food and security has been a problem for a while
here in Massachusetts, especially since the start of COVID, so
I'm imagining that demand has been huge for that now.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, one in three people in Massachusetts struggle with food
and security. And I just want to be clear when
we say food in security, it's really nutrition insecurity. It's
the inability to get access to healthy food. People can
eat food. They can buy high calorie, low nutrition food
at very low cost, and that's what people are going
to do if they have to make a choice. But
particularly since the pandemic, food pantries have been slammed with
(02:57):
increased numbers. And what Daily Do Table does is give
people another option besides the food pantry. They can come,
they can use their own dollars, they can shop, they
can choose what they want.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And you've brought up a really good point in that
when you are struggling with food insecurity, sometimes you feel
a loss of agency. I feel like you just want
to be able to go and pick out your own food,
right stuff. You know your kids are going to want
to eat stuff that you're going to want to eat.
You can't live offcraft mac and cheese forever. And even then,
if you're unhoused, you may not have a place to
cook the mac and cheese things like that. So you know,
(03:29):
this is a really good option for people to go
not just feel like a human and going to the
grocery store, but also getting stuff that works for them.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
They can choose what works for them and they can
walk out with dignity knowing that they are providing for
their families, they are providing for themselves. Food pantries are
incredible options if people have no other choice, but in
so many cases we've heard people will not go to
a food pantry. They want to take care of themselves.
They want to choose what they can eat. They want
that agency you refer to, and Daily Table provides that.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, and you bring up a great point there too.
And it's not that people don't want to work. It's
not that people don't want to make the money. It's
just really tough all around right now.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, and to be fair, we've seen unprecedented food inflation
over the past since the pandemic. I see it. I
struggle to buy really healthy, good food. Everybody who shops
can see the cost of food has gone up far
more quickly than any other costs we've seen. So people
can be working full time jobs and still struggle to
(04:27):
be feeding their families healthy food.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, well, tell us about the Double Up food Bucks program.
You've had it in place since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
What exactly is that this is an incredible program. The
goal of this program is to increase the amount of
fruits and vegetables that people eat. In order to increase
that amount, you have to make them affordable. So the
Double Up food Bucks program offers half off all produce,
all fruits and vegetables for people using Snap, which is
(04:55):
an ABT card or what used to be called food stamps.
So if people already are struggling to afford food, the
Double Up food Bucks program says, you can come into
daily table where our prices on our produce is already
very low, and you are going to get half off
of all produce, all fruits and vegetables. This is an
incredibly important program to ensure that people have access to
(05:18):
that food and to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables.
From January alone, we have seen shoppers at are store
that use Snap. They're purchasing of fruits and vegetables has
gone up eighty four percent.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I don't see why people wouldn't want to bring in
fresh food if they have the access to it. That's
exactly the point. It's you know, you go to the
local bodega or whatever, you're not going to find fruit
that's accessible. These food deserts are in more places than
people would think. So to make it easier to find
this healthy food, it's a win win, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And what we what we've really found with this Double
Up Food Buck program is the issue is affordability. When
people could start affording fruits and vegetable that is what
they're choosing. People want to eat healthy food, They want
to feed their children healthy food. It is not affordable
without a solution like Daily Table. You add on Double
Up food Bucks. It ensures that people using Snap can
(06:15):
feed their families and themselves healthy food all month long
using their Snap benefits alone.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So, now, though the problem is you say the program
has to be suspended for most of your stores. What
happened here?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So we had been receiving since twenty eighteen, We had
been receiving a significant grant from the federal government that
had been funding the bulk of this program. We do
have support from Cambridge in the Cambridge Store, but the
bulk of the funding was coming from a grant from
the USDA and we ran out of funding from the
(06:49):
USDA and we had to suspend the program this past weekend.
We are urgently trying to find additional funding so we
can restart this program and sure that people have access
to fresh, healthy food.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Now, what kind of funding do you need here? Just
a few thousand dollars? How big is the burden to
make sure that this program can be funded? And then
following up on that, is there any other way that
the FEDS can start to find money to fund this again?
Or is this just like we're done with this.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So to give you a sense of how effective this
program has been since we started it in twenty eighteen,
this program has funded almost two million dollars in fresh
roots and vegetables. So people have spent nearly two million
and then we've matched another nearly two million dollars. The
program has been averaging in the last year over seven
(07:41):
hundred thousand dollars in one year of fruits and vegetables
a match to our shoppers. We are trying to raise
five hundred thousand dollars in order to restart this program
across all five stores and ensure that it's there throughout
the year. We are speaking with state reps, state senators,
(08:02):
we are speaking with each of the city mayors or
city managers as appropriate, and most importantly so I'm so
glad you asked. We are launching a gofund me and
we are asking the community to step up and help
feed their neighbors. We're trying to raise five hundred thousand
dollars to ensure that this program runs through the end
of the year at all five of our stores.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money, of course,
a lot of money when people come together to get
things done, anything as possible.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Without a doubt. I mean, this offers people an opportunity
to contribute five dollars or five hundred dollars or five
thousand dollars. And we know that people exist at all
different income levels and have different amounts to give, but
it gives everybody a way to participate in creating healthy communities,
in ensuring that their neighbors can buy healthy food. In
(08:52):
addition to our GoFundMe, we are going to the cities
directly we are talking to our state reps and state senators.
We are coming up with a stratum for long term
funding of this program. The urgency is this weekend. This
past weekend, we had to suspend the program. So right now,
over the coming two three four weeks, people do not
have access to that benefit, and it is going to
(09:13):
affect them every day. It is going to affect how
much fruits and vegetables they can give their children every day.
So the urgency in getting this program restarted is intense.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, I was going to say, are you seeing any
impact already at this point. I know it's only been
a couple of days, but tell me about the impact
you're already noticing.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Sure. I mean, as I mentioned, Cambridge is still running
and we're grateful to the City of Cambridge for that.
But we've talked with our store managers and team members.
We've tried to get the message out to our customers.
We've put signage up in stores, but not everybody's seen it.
So we have had customers come up with basketful of
produce and then have to put half of that back,
(09:52):
or they've left to try to find better pricing. Our
customers rely on that. We have customers that come up
to the counter with a basket full of protos, knowing
how much they can buy with developed food bucks. When
they find out that the program has been suspended, they
have to put that food back. That's the impact that
we're seeing today. Our customers have been incredibly understanding. Many
(10:14):
of them are still taking advantage of the low prices
at Daily Table, but they are not able to purchase
the amount of food they have been able to do
just last week.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
All right, so let's talk about how people can help
if they want to. Where is your website social media?
Where can people find out more about what's going on
and how can they help?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So our GoFundMe has just gone live this morning. We
haven't formally launched it, but people can access that as
of today. They can go to daily table dot org
slash go fund me, one word g f u n dme,
daily table dot org slash GoFundMe. A contribution of five
dollars is helpful. If you can give more than that,
(10:53):
please give more than that. Be a part of the
solution to ensure that your neighbors have access to healthy
fruits and vegetables.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
All right, So again, dailytable dot org slash go fundme.
Sasha from Daily Table, good luck and I hope you're
able to get the funding you need to keep this
program going.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Thank you so much, and we really appreciate the coverage
and the ability to let people know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend,
where each and every week we come together right here
we talk about all the topics important to you and
the place where you live. It is so good to
be back with you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis.
One out of every three adults in Massachusetts are struggling
right now to put food on the table. Any base
Staters are living in what are called food deserts. Those
(00:30):
are areas where fresh produce is tough to find. Daily
Table has set up nonprofit grocery stores all over Greater
Boston for many years. Their mission has been simple, get tasty, fresh,
and nutritious food in the hands of as many people
as possible without breaking their bank. One of the most
popular programs that the stores has come to a screeching halt,
and now they're reaching out to their neighbors to get
(00:51):
some help. CEO Sasha Propora is here to talk with
us about this. Sasha, it is great to have you
on board. Before we get into what's happening, tell us
a bit more about Daily Table.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Daily Table The first store opened in twenty sixteen in
Codman Square in Dorchester, and the organization was founded by
the pest president of Trader Joe's North America, Doug Row,
and he had retired from Trader Joe's and gone on
to a program at Harvard and Advanced Leadership Initiative to
figure out how could he do good in the world,
What could he do that, what might make a difference,
(01:23):
And Daily Table was born out of that. The idea is,
there are so many people out there that cannot afford
healthy food. They want to feed their families healthy food.
They are not going to go to a food pantry
because they want to care for their families and care
for themselves. But the reality today is healthy food is expensive,
and doug wanted to create a shopping experience with dignity
(01:48):
where people could feel good, come in and not only
have access to tremendous amount of fruits, vegetables, proteins, but
at affordable prices. So to really give people the option
to on their own choose what they wanted and buy
healthy food. We feel like healthy food is the cheapest
(02:09):
answer to healthcare. If you eat healthy food, you grow
up healthy, you have healthy communities. So Daily Table was
about creating an affordable access to healthy food with a
dignified shopping experience where people can choose for themselves.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Food and security has been a problem for a while
here in Massachusetts, especially since the start of COVID, so
I'm imagining that demand has been huge for that now.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, one in three people in Massachusetts struggle with food
and security. And I just want to be clear when
we say food in security, it's really nutrition insecurity. It's
the inability to get access to healthy food. People can
eat food. They can buy high calorie, low nutrition food
at very low cost, and that's what people are going
to do if they have to make a choice. But
particularly since the pandemic, food pantries have been slammed with
(02:57):
increased numbers. And what Daily Do Table does is give
people another option besides the food pantry. They can come,
they can use their own dollars, they can shop, they
can choose what they want.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And you've brought up a really good point in that
when you are struggling with food insecurity, sometimes you feel
a loss of agency. I feel like you just want
to be able to go and pick out your own food,
right stuff. You know your kids are going to want
to eat stuff that you're going to want to eat.
You can't live offcraft mac and cheese forever. And even then,
if you're unhoused, you may not have a place to
cook the mac and cheese things like that. So you know,
(03:29):
this is a really good option for people to go
not just feel like a human and going to the
grocery store, but also getting stuff that works for them.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
They can choose what works for them and they can
walk out with dignity knowing that they are providing for
their families, they are providing for themselves. Food pantries are
incredible options if people have no other choice, but in
so many cases we've heard people will not go to
a food pantry. They want to take care of themselves.
They want to choose what they can eat. They want
that agency you refer to, and Daily Table provides that.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, and you bring up a great point there too.
And it's not that people don't want to work. It's
not that people don't want to make the money. It's
just really tough all around right now.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, and to be fair, we've seen unprecedented food inflation
over the past since the pandemic. I see it. I
struggle to buy really healthy, good food. Everybody who shops
can see the cost of food has gone up far
more quickly than any other costs we've seen. So people
can be working full time jobs and still struggle to
(04:27):
be feeding their families healthy food.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, well, tell us about the Double Up food Bucks program.
You've had it in place since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
What exactly is that this is an incredible program. The
goal of this program is to increase the amount of
fruits and vegetables that people eat. In order to increase
that amount, you have to make them affordable. So the
Double Up food Bucks program offers half off all produce,
all fruits and vegetables for people using Snap, which is
(04:55):
an ABT card or what used to be called food stamps.
So if people already are struggling to afford food, the
Double Up food Bucks program says, you can come into
daily table where our prices on our produce is already
very low, and you are going to get half off
of all produce, all fruits and vegetables. This is an
incredibly important program to ensure that people have access to
(05:18):
that food and to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables.
From January alone, we have seen shoppers at are store
that use Snap. They're purchasing of fruits and vegetables has
gone up eighty four percent.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I don't see why people wouldn't want to bring in
fresh food if they have the access to it. That's
exactly the point. It's you know, you go to the
local bodega or whatever, you're not going to find fruit
that's accessible. These food deserts are in more places than
people would think. So to make it easier to find
this healthy food, it's a win win, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And what we what we've really found with this Double
Up Food Buck program is the issue is affordability. When
people could start affording fruits and vegetable that is what
they're choosing. People want to eat healthy food, They want
to feed their children healthy food. It is not affordable
without a solution like Daily Table. You add on Double
Up food Bucks. It ensures that people using Snap can
(06:15):
feed their families and themselves healthy food all month long
using their Snap benefits alone.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So, now, though the problem is you say the program
has to be suspended for most of your stores. What
happened here?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So we had been receiving since twenty eighteen, We had
been receiving a significant grant from the federal government that
had been funding the bulk of this program. We do
have support from Cambridge in the Cambridge Store, but the
bulk of the funding was coming from a grant from
the USDA and we ran out of funding from the
(06:49):
USDA and we had to suspend the program this past weekend.
We are urgently trying to find additional funding so we
can restart this program and sure that people have access
to fresh, healthy food.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Now, what kind of funding do you need here? Just
a few thousand dollars? How big is the burden to
make sure that this program can be funded? And then
following up on that, is there any other way that
the FEDS can start to find money to fund this again?
Or is this just like we're done with this.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So to give you a sense of how effective this
program has been since we started it in twenty eighteen,
this program has funded almost two million dollars in fresh
roots and vegetables. So people have spent nearly two million
and then we've matched another nearly two million dollars. The
program has been averaging in the last year over seven
(07:41):
hundred thousand dollars in one year of fruits and vegetables
a match to our shoppers. We are trying to raise
five hundred thousand dollars in order to restart this program
across all five stores and ensure that it's there throughout
the year. We are speaking with state reps, state senators,
(08:02):
we are speaking with each of the city mayors or
city managers as appropriate, and most importantly so I'm so
glad you asked. We are launching a gofund me and
we are asking the community to step up and help
feed their neighbors. We're trying to raise five hundred thousand
dollars to ensure that this program runs through the end
of the year at all five of our stores.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money, of course,
a lot of money when people come together to get
things done, anything as possible.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Without a doubt. I mean, this offers people an opportunity
to contribute five dollars or five hundred dollars or five
thousand dollars. And we know that people exist at all
different income levels and have different amounts to give, but
it gives everybody a way to participate in creating healthy communities,
in ensuring that their neighbors can buy healthy food. In
(08:52):
addition to our GoFundMe, we are going to the cities
directly we are talking to our state reps and state senators.
We are coming up with a stratum for long term
funding of this program. The urgency is this weekend. This
past weekend, we had to suspend the program. So right now,
over the coming two three four weeks, people do not
have access to that benefit, and it is going to
(09:13):
affect them every day. It is going to affect how
much fruits and vegetables they can give their children every day.
So the urgency in getting this program restarted is intense.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, I was going to say, are you seeing any
impact already at this point. I know it's only been
a couple of days, but tell me about the impact
you're already noticing.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Sure. I mean, as I mentioned, Cambridge is still running
and we're grateful to the City of Cambridge for that.
But we've talked with our store managers and team members.
We've tried to get the message out to our customers.
We've put signage up in stores, but not everybody's seen it.
So we have had customers come up with basketful of
produce and then have to put half of that back,
(09:52):
or they've left to try to find better pricing. Our
customers rely on that. We have customers that come up
to the counter with a basket full of protos, knowing
how much they can buy with developed food bucks. When
they find out that the program has been suspended, they
have to put that food back. That's the impact that
we're seeing today. Our customers have been incredibly understanding. Many
(10:14):
of them are still taking advantage of the low prices
at Daily Table, but they are not able to purchase
the amount of food they have been able to do
just last week.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
All right, so let's talk about how people can help
if they want to. Where is your website social media?
Where can people find out more about what's going on
and how can they help?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So our GoFundMe has just gone live this morning. We
haven't formally launched it, but people can access that as
of today. They can go to daily table dot org
slash go fund me, one word g f u n dme,
daily table dot org slash GoFundMe. A contribution of five
dollars is helpful. If you can give more than that,
(10:53):
please give more than that. Be a part of the
solution to ensure that your neighbors have access to healthy
fruits and vegetables.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
All right, So again, dailytable dot org slash go fundme.
Sasha from Daily Table, good luck and I hope you're
able to get the funding you need to keep this
program going.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Thank you so much, and we really appreciate the coverage
and the ability to let people know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.