May 17, 2025 • 9 mins
A few months back, Sasha Purpura from Daily Table in Boston joined the show to talk about the non-profit grocery store's mission: team up with local suppliers and farmers to ensure everyone has access to low-cost, healthy food. Some surprising news has developed: the board of Daily Table announced recently it was closing down all operations within a matter of days, a move that shocked advocates, community leaders, and residents. Sasha returns to the show to talk about what happened and share resources for those who are food insecure in Massachusetts.
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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 right here we come
together we talk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live. So good to have
you back with us this weekend. I'm Nicole Davis. You
might remember a few months back we were talking about
Daily Table here on the show. It's nonprofit's been around
(00:27):
for about ten years, a handful of stores here in
the Boston area with one simple mission, team up with
local farmers and suppliers and make sure everybody, no matter
the income, has access to low cost, healthy food. A
few days ago, though, I saw some really surprising news.
I was scrolling through the internet and I noticed the
board of Daily Tables said they were closing everything down
(00:48):
within a matter of days. Super surprising. I knew I
had to call Sasha Propora. She was the CEO of
Daily Table up until they closed this past week, and
she's been here on the show a couple of times.
Graciously she's here again to talk about this transition. So Sasha,
really quite happy you're here. Thank you again for your time.
I'm going to keep it simple to start what happened here.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Daily Table has I mean. Our financial challenges in truth
started back during the pandemic. So Daily Table stayed open
and kept all of our staff on while sales dropped dramatically.
But we felt part of our mission isn't just getting
food to people, it's lifting up communities. You can't get
food if you don't have a job, so we kept
(01:30):
people on. That took a toll on our finances, and
then the following five years, food inflation has been unprecedented
and that we have not similarly wanted to pass those
costs onto our customers because that defeats the purpose of
our mission, and so our costs were rising at a
much greater rate than we could pass on to our customers,
(01:53):
and that's taken a continuous toll. We then had two
stores open in one year, so we opened Mattapan and Salem,
both in twenty twenty three, and that was never the plan,
but there were pandemic related delays and other things that
led to two stores opening in one year, which generally
we would not want to do because the first year
eighteen months the store is open, it loses a lot
(02:14):
of money because it's building up its customer base. So
we'd had this series of financial challenges. In the fall,
we lost our funding for what we called double up
food Bucks, where snapshoppers got half off of produce. We
had to suspend that program for a couple of months.
I will say that the City of Boston stepped up,
the City of Cambridge individual donors, and we were able
(02:36):
to reinstate it with a limited match, but that also
hit us hard. A lot of customers deeply relied on
those discounts and they stopped coming to Daily Table when
we lost the deubl uped food Bucks, and it's been
a very, very slow comeback for our customer base. The
new federal grant was supposed to open in April for
(02:58):
the next funding round of double Up food Bucks, and
that keeps getting delayed, and based on everything that we're
seeing right now, I highly doubt they're going to open
that grand up with all of the funding that's being cut.
We have been fending off financial challenges for a very
long time. At the same time, everybody knows how critical
(03:19):
Daily Table is and we have been going to everybody
to continue to fight those financial challenges. The board personally
has stepped up very generously to support the organization. Different
cities have contributed individuals, funders, and we wanted to keep
this going as long as there was any hope of
keeping it going. Because every day that Daily Table was open,
(03:41):
people could afford healthy food for their families, and our
staff had living wage jobs.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
The beautiful thing about Daily Table is that you serve
people in between. I think it's important to note Daily
Table is not a food pantry. Daily Table is not
a regular supermarket. You are there to bridge the gap
for people who are working forty hours a week but
just not getting paid a lot of money, or people
who are able to work a little bit, or people
who are on disability who just can't stretch the money
(04:09):
that far. It's served me so many purposes Seniors.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Daily Table was absolutely for everyone, from
people who, as you mentioned, maybe had very limited income
to anybody. Really anybody could shop there, but it was
so important to people on Snap and people who didn't
quite qualify for SNAP but still had incredibly high costs
of living. We were a part of an incredible hunger
(04:33):
relief ecosystem. Food pantries still existed, but Daily Table was
able to really lighten the load on those food pantries.
A lot of our shoppers would leverage both Daily Table
and the food pantry. A lot of our shoppers were
not willing to go to food pantries, so Daily Table
was there for them. But all of us worked in
concert to try to catch all of the folks in
our communities that, with the costs of living, really struggled
(04:56):
to put healthy food on their tables.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And food pantries are struggling right now as it is.
I mean, especially you talk about the lack of federal funding.
People who didn't want to go to food pantries whatever. Okay,
that's a personal decision, But now I mean thinking about this, well,
what's going to happen now?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, the timing is terrible. I remember during the pandemic,
a whole flew of people who had never gone to
a food pantry, probably could have, but never had really
hit that point where they had to go. And I'm
afraid that's all going to happen again. And unfortunately Daily Table,
you know, leaving these communities at this point in time
(05:33):
is devastating, not only for our clients obviously, but for
food pantries that are going to have to pick up
a lot of that slack.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I really wish that there was a way that you
could find a way to bring this back at some
point in the future, because obviously times are tough right
now for everybody across the board, and finances are difficult.
But this is an idea that I feel was so
beneficial to the community. And knowing that people like you
are behind an idea, you believe in this, you believe
(06:01):
that nobody should go hungry. I mean, that's a universal thing.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I agree, Nicole. And one hopeful light coming out of
this is Daily Table's been around ten years. We have
had people from across the country reach out with interest
in this solution. People know about it, people saw it
work for ten years. I truly hope that this is
not the end. That this happened. In the way that happened,
(06:27):
we've learned a lot. If something like this were to
be reborn in some other manner, I believe it would
have so much more benefit from everything that we learned.
And my hope is that Daily Table was a step
towards this type of solution. Maybe it was the wrong
time for us, Maybe a year from now is the
right time. Maybe five years, maybe six months. Maybe somebody
(06:49):
else picks up the baton and helps take advantage of
everything that we learned and what we proved can really
benefit a community. I do not want this to be
the very end. I want to say that for ten years,
this organization served its communities. This organization, which was its communities,
took care of its communities. It is absolutely devastating that
(07:10):
it's going away, and nothing undoes that, but it is
so important to recognize and celebrate what it did do
and what it will hopefully catalyze in the future.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
That's the thing. I mean you you worked so hard.
You definitely, I mean I was doing some quick research
before we started talking you through your work. You returned
more than sixteen million dollars in savings to the community.
I mean that is a huge number. You served over
two hundred and sixty thousand residents just last year. So
Daily Table, I mean you have made a major impact.
(07:42):
And I hope you all know that we do.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
We do, and I am so grateful to Doug Row,
who founded the organization, and to all of the team
members that were there before me, and while I was there,
it was truly a beautiful place and that is what
we did. That is what Daily Table did. And Daily
Table is made up of all sorts of people and
of funders and of community partners. It is not a
single entity as people. It is partners and it really
(08:05):
did beautiful things.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So what do you think should come next for people
in the community who relied on Daily Table? What is
your advice for somebody who might be listening.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, I will say there is a website if you
are trying to access food and have needs in that regard,
I highly recommend people visit Boston dot gov Boston dot
gov Flash Food Resources, and that lists some different options,
one of which is Project Breads Food Hotline. It's available
in one hundred and eighty languages one eight hundred six
(08:38):
four five eight three three three. That number is also
listed at the Boston dot gov Slash Food Resources.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
All right, phenomenal, and of course we have the Greater
Boston Food Bank around. We have lots of great food pantries.
I know in Salem, the Salem Pantry is up there
doing there. They are beautiful, y, great group.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Amazing marking. Say yeah, when I would while I was
at Daily Table, I got to visit the Salem Pantry,
which is a market. It's a beautiful store. There are
so many folks out in all of our communities that
are behind people who need resources to food. There's food
pantries in every city. The cities are interested, so please
keep your fingers crossed that we can continue to do more.
(09:18):
But there are a lot of organizations out there working
to take care of their communities.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah for sure. Well, thank you for all you did
for the community for those ten years. It is not
going to be forgotten, and I agree with you. I
hope this is the first step into something bigger and better.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, thank you for highlighting this. Nicole, have a.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Safe and healthy weekend. Be sure to stay dry out there,
and join us 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 right here we come
together we talk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live. So good to have
you back with us this weekend. I'm Nicole Davis. You
might remember a few months back we were talking about
Daily Table here on the show. It's nonprofit's been around
(00:27):
for about ten years, a handful of stores here in
the Boston area with one simple mission, team up with
local farmers and suppliers and make sure everybody, no matter
the income, has access to low cost, healthy food. A
few days ago, though, I saw some really surprising news.
I was scrolling through the internet and I noticed the
board of Daily Tables said they were closing everything down
(00:48):
within a matter of days. Super surprising. I knew I
had to call Sasha Propora. She was the CEO of
Daily Table up until they closed this past week, and
she's been here on the show a couple of times.
Graciously she's here again to talk about this transition. So Sasha,
really quite happy you're here. Thank you again for your time.
I'm going to keep it simple to start what happened here.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Daily Table has I mean. Our financial challenges in truth
started back during the pandemic. So Daily Table stayed open
and kept all of our staff on while sales dropped dramatically.
But we felt part of our mission isn't just getting
food to people, it's lifting up communities. You can't get
food if you don't have a job, so we kept
(01:30):
people on. That took a toll on our finances, and
then the following five years, food inflation has been unprecedented
and that we have not similarly wanted to pass those
costs onto our customers because that defeats the purpose of
our mission, and so our costs were rising at a
much greater rate than we could pass on to our customers,
(01:53):
and that's taken a continuous toll. We then had two
stores open in one year, so we opened Mattapan and Salem,
both in twenty twenty three, and that was never the plan,
but there were pandemic related delays and other things that
led to two stores opening in one year, which generally
we would not want to do because the first year
eighteen months the store is open, it loses a lot
(02:14):
of money because it's building up its customer base. So
we'd had this series of financial challenges. In the fall,
we lost our funding for what we called double up
food Bucks, where snapshoppers got half off of produce. We
had to suspend that program for a couple of months.
I will say that the City of Boston stepped up,
the City of Cambridge individual donors, and we were able
(02:36):
to reinstate it with a limited match, but that also
hit us hard. A lot of customers deeply relied on
those discounts and they stopped coming to Daily Table when
we lost the deubl uped food Bucks, and it's been
a very, very slow comeback for our customer base. The
new federal grant was supposed to open in April for
(02:58):
the next funding round of double Up food Bucks, and
that keeps getting delayed, and based on everything that we're
seeing right now, I highly doubt they're going to open
that grand up with all of the funding that's being cut.
We have been fending off financial challenges for a very
long time. At the same time, everybody knows how critical
(03:19):
Daily Table is and we have been going to everybody
to continue to fight those financial challenges. The board personally
has stepped up very generously to support the organization. Different
cities have contributed individuals, funders, and we wanted to keep
this going as long as there was any hope of
keeping it going. Because every day that Daily Table was open,
(03:41):
people could afford healthy food for their families, and our
staff had living wage jobs.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
The beautiful thing about Daily Table is that you serve
people in between. I think it's important to note Daily
Table is not a food pantry. Daily Table is not
a regular supermarket. You are there to bridge the gap
for people who are working forty hours a week but
just not getting paid a lot of money, or people
who are able to work a little bit, or people
who are on disability who just can't stretch the money
(04:09):
that far. It's served me so many purposes Seniors.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Daily Table was absolutely for everyone, from
people who, as you mentioned, maybe had very limited income
to anybody. Really anybody could shop there, but it was
so important to people on Snap and people who didn't
quite qualify for SNAP but still had incredibly high costs
of living. We were a part of an incredible hunger
(04:33):
relief ecosystem. Food pantries still existed, but Daily Table was
able to really lighten the load on those food pantries.
A lot of our shoppers would leverage both Daily Table
and the food pantry. A lot of our shoppers were
not willing to go to food pantries, so Daily Table
was there for them. But all of us worked in
concert to try to catch all of the folks in
our communities that, with the costs of living, really struggled
(04:56):
to put healthy food on their tables.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And food pantries are struggling right now as it is.
I mean, especially you talk about the lack of federal funding.
People who didn't want to go to food pantries whatever. Okay,
that's a personal decision, But now I mean thinking about this, well,
what's going to happen now?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, the timing is terrible. I remember during the pandemic,
a whole flew of people who had never gone to
a food pantry, probably could have, but never had really
hit that point where they had to go. And I'm
afraid that's all going to happen again. And unfortunately Daily Table,
you know, leaving these communities at this point in time
(05:33):
is devastating, not only for our clients obviously, but for
food pantries that are going to have to pick up
a lot of that slack.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I really wish that there was a way that you
could find a way to bring this back at some
point in the future, because obviously times are tough right
now for everybody across the board, and finances are difficult.
But this is an idea that I feel was so
beneficial to the community. And knowing that people like you
are behind an idea, you believe in this, you believe
(06:01):
that nobody should go hungry. I mean, that's a universal thing.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I agree, Nicole. And one hopeful light coming out of
this is Daily Table's been around ten years. We have
had people from across the country reach out with interest
in this solution. People know about it, people saw it
work for ten years. I truly hope that this is
not the end. That this happened. In the way that happened,
(06:27):
we've learned a lot. If something like this were to
be reborn in some other manner, I believe it would
have so much more benefit from everything that we learned.
And my hope is that Daily Table was a step
towards this type of solution. Maybe it was the wrong
time for us, Maybe a year from now is the
right time. Maybe five years, maybe six months. Maybe somebody
(06:49):
else picks up the baton and helps take advantage of
everything that we learned and what we proved can really
benefit a community. I do not want this to be
the very end. I want to say that for ten years,
this organization served its communities. This organization, which was its communities,
took care of its communities. It is absolutely devastating that
(07:10):
it's going away, and nothing undoes that, but it is
so important to recognize and celebrate what it did do
and what it will hopefully catalyze in the future.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
That's the thing. I mean you you worked so hard.
You definitely, I mean I was doing some quick research
before we started talking you through your work. You returned
more than sixteen million dollars in savings to the community.
I mean that is a huge number. You served over
two hundred and sixty thousand residents just last year. So
Daily Table, I mean you have made a major impact.
(07:42):
And I hope you all know that we do.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
We do, and I am so grateful to Doug Row,
who founded the organization, and to all of the team
members that were there before me, and while I was there,
it was truly a beautiful place and that is what
we did. That is what Daily Table did. And Daily
Table is made up of all sorts of people and
of funders and of community partners. It is not a
single entity as people. It is partners and it really
(08:05):
did beautiful things.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So what do you think should come next for people
in the community who relied on Daily Table? What is
your advice for somebody who might be listening.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, I will say there is a website if you
are trying to access food and have needs in that regard,
I highly recommend people visit Boston dot gov Boston dot
gov Flash Food Resources, and that lists some different options,
one of which is Project Breads Food Hotline. It's available
in one hundred and eighty languages one eight hundred six
(08:38):
four five eight three three three. That number is also
listed at the Boston dot gov Slash Food Resources.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
All right, phenomenal, and of course we have the Greater
Boston Food Bank around. We have lots of great food pantries.
I know in Salem, the Salem Pantry is up there
doing there. They are beautiful, y, great group.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Amazing marking. Say yeah, when I would while I was
at Daily Table, I got to visit the Salem Pantry,
which is a market. It's a beautiful store. There are
so many folks out in all of our communities that
are behind people who need resources to food. There's food
pantries in every city. The cities are interested, so please
keep your fingers crossed that we can continue to do more.
(09:18):
But there are a lot of organizations out there working
to take care of their communities.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah for sure. Well, thank you for all you did
for the community for those ten years. It is not
going to be forgotten, and I agree with you. I
hope this is the first step into something bigger and better.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, thank you for highlighting this. Nicole, have a.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Safe and healthy weekend. Be sure to stay dry out there,
and join us again next week for another edition of
the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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