The Vineyard Committee on Hunger is dissolving its organization after nearly 50 years, with Island Grown Initiative taking over the committee’s Serving Hands and Family to Family food distribution programs.
“There will be no interruption in these programs and clients will continue to see the volunteers and staff they have gotten to know,” Island Grown co-executive director Noli Taylor said in a statement announcing the change.
Serving Hands provides about 5,000 pounds of groceries from the Greater Boston Food Bank to more than 100 Vineyard households every month, according to the announcement.
Family to Family distributes holiday meal kits for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, with ingredients from local farms and markets as well as the Boston food bank.
Both programs are run from the First Baptist Church in Vineyard Haven with help from Daybreak Clubhouse at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, which supports adults with mental illnesses.
Husband and wife Betty Burton and John Sundman founded the Vineyard Committee on Hunger out of their home in 1975, with their three children becoming the first of countless Islanders who have volunteered their time with the group to keep others from going hungry.
The committee placed donation jars in local markets and held bake sales and other public events to raise money for its own programs as well as the Island Food Pantry, Meals on Wheels, Oxfam and other groups fighting hunger on the Vineyard and worldwide.
The committee’s two distribution programs now join a suite of other food equity initiatives at Island Grown, including the food pantry, Island Grown Gleaning, a mobile grocery market and a commercial kitchen turning out soups and other prepared meals.
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