The MEND team — Rick Wessler, Robin Peacock, Kate Cahill and Jabbar Abdi — with Sweet Pea give props to Impact100 Essex for its support.
ORANGE, NJ — Meeting Essential Needs with Dignity recently launched its Fresh Food Hub with the funds from a transformative $120,000 grant from Impact100 Essex. MEND is using the 4,000-square-foot facility in Orange as a centralized location from which it will source, transport, refrigerate, pack and distribute more fresh and healthy food to food insecure people throughout Essex County.
In addition to using the Impact100 Essex award to partially fund the physical space, MEND also purchased a cargo van, dubbed “The Sweet Pea,” to help with additional food sourcing and food transportation needs. The van complements the “The Green Bean,” a converted school bus already used for community outreach, large-scale food drives and free farmers market–style distributions at pantry sites.
With COVID-19 dramatically increasing the logistical challenges already facing emergency food providers, and the ongoing need for greater fresh food access in the community, the hub launch was accelerated.
“We are thrilled to have this space,” MEND Executive Director Robin Peacock said. “The increasing demand for healthy food has long been raised by the pantry managers as an issue they’d like MEND support for, given their own logistical challenges. The new hub will help us expand our collaborations with fresh food partners and significantly increase the amount of fresh food the pantries and other organizations can distribute.”
“With the intense spike in hunger across Essex County, and more people turning to MEND pantries for support, MEND has had to increase our volume of donations and food distribution,” MEND board of trustees Chairperson Jabbar Abdi said. “Now, with the Fresh Food Hub, we can do more to serve people in need.”
MEND is a hunger relief network serving Essex County. Last year, MEND member pantries served more than 160,000 people. The organization focuses on alleviating hunger and addressing its root causes by supporting a network of 20 food pantries in Bloomfield, East Orange, Irvington, Maplewood, Montclair, Newark, Orange, South Orange and West Orange.
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