Community outreach finds its culinary footing during the pandemic

During that chaotic time in March of 2020 when everything familiar shifted, Ellie Linen Low of Falmouth woke up in the middle of the night, feeling devastated but suddenly inspired.

“The idea is not unique, but we have people going hungry and restaurants that don’t have customers because of the pandemic. Wouldn’t it be great if we could support the restaurants to help feed people in need, and then add in buying local food?”

Linen Low had friends adversely affected by the pandemic, and friends in places that could help. Within two weeks, Linen Low and friends formed Cooking for Community with $50,000 in private donations and an all-volunteer staff. The intent was to tap idled resources within Portland’s famed restaurant industry to help feed people facing food insecurity.

Around the time Linen Low had her late-night brainstorm, Helen Breña, president of the YMCA of Southern Maine, was meeting with her team to create their own pandemic rapid response plan.

“What we really stayed focused on was identifying the needs. What are they and how can we help? Then, we were committed to continuing to pay our staff,” she said.

A few weeks later, Breña was contacted by the team at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care who shared similar goals as the YMCA. A Harvard Pilgrim staff member, Justin Burkhardt, discovered Cooking for Community and knew it was an effort the organization wanted to support. They realized that the YMCA could not only contact people who would benefit from meals, but they had the existing infrastructure to deliver food to people in need.

“It’s important for us to partner with local nonprofit organizations who are already doing the work and understand where the greatest need is in the community,” said Bill Whitmore, vice president of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, who leads the Maine team. “These are the kinds of partnerships that have the highest impact and we can quickly support those most in need.”

Damian Sansonetti, co-owner of Chaval in Portland, holds meals that his staff prepared for delivery by YMCA employees.

“The model was phenomenal,” said Breña. “Harvard Pilgrim brought us together with Cooking for Community for a multi-pronged approach. We were able to keep staff employed to make deliveries; we provided around 14,000 meals from May through August, folks who received food, also got a social visit and then we were able to work with local restaurants to keep them alive.”

From an initial commitment of $60,000 for the first month, Harvard Pilgrim ended up funding the program through August for a total of $240,000 over the course of the year. As people who have experience in fundraising, both Breña and Linen Low praised Harvard Pilgrim Foundation’s methods.

“The best thing is that they didn’t ask too many questions,” said Linen Low with a laugh. “The trust, the enthusiasm and the belief that Harvard Pilgrim had for this model and what we might be able to accomplish — they wanted to hear how things were going, continue to provide financial support, and celebrate our successes.”

While the Foundation has stepped back financially from that initial seed funding, it continues to support the program in other ways.

“We had a lot of early traction and then Harvard Pilgrim gave us credibility and legitimacy,” said

Staff at Little Giant package potato salad and fried chicken. The restaurant was compensated for food and labor costs by Cooking for Community. Photo by Winky Lewis

Ian Malin, the volunteer production and operations lead for Cooking for Community and the owner of Little Giant, a restaurant in Portland’s West End.

Malin’s responsibilities are complex and were even more so at the beginning. He makes sure the dollars coming in can produce the needed amount of meals and then coordinates drivers for pick-ups at restaurants that are dealing with their own pandemic problems – from flailing finances to necessary closures for testing and cleaning.

A year in, the dynamics have steadied and Malin remains proud of the group’s efficiency while focusing on fundraising for the coming year.

“There’s no staff, no overhead, no leakage,” he said. “The money that comes in, goes out [to those in need].”

Furthermore, as a restaurant owner, the program was critical for his business to survive the winter. Since food and labor costs are covered by a Cooking for Community contract, a shift producing meals for people in need was equal to “a decent weeknight for a small, independent restaurant.”

A reflection of the thought put into the program can be found in the quality and type of meals made for distribution. Cooking for Community meals are designed to be eaten cold or to be reheated. Malin said Little Giant’s big hits were fried chicken or fried rice with Atlantic Sea Farms kelp kimchi.

One of these meal recipients was Elizabeth, a retired professional in her 60s who is also a cancer survivor. She had been a member of the Northern York County Branch of the YMCA of Southern Maine and they called her to ask if she wanted to receive dinner twice a week.

“I couldn’t think of any reason not to,” Elizabeth said, and started coordinating with neighbors in her apartment building to pick up meals at the YMCA branch location in Biddeford.

Ashish Shrestha of Amistad gets ready to distribute meals and Amato’s gift cards to homeless residents in Portland. Courtesy of Cooking for Community

She found that organizing people for that one activity snowballed into more good deeds.

“It increased my sense of community: in my town and in my building,” Elizabeth said. “We used to have little parties in the community room, so this was a way to stay in touch and keep supporting neighbors. The interaction with people at the Y was also beneficial to me. Especially at the beginning, it was a good reason for me to get out of the house.”

Now, Elizabeth plans to volunteer at her local YMCA this summer and has kept organizing her building, where many of the residents, including herself, qualify for food assistance benefits. When reached for this interview, she had just hung a flyer in the elevator telling neighbors about more upcoming free food distribution dates.

“I’m just trying to be a good neighbor,” she said, explaining her continued outreach.

As an added benefit, Elizabeth discovered she loves meatloaf from Mama Mo’s, which is based in Yarmouth and is available in meaty and vegan forms at Fork Food Lab in Portland.

After a year of learning and growing, Cooking for Community has been able to expand their services to Midcoast Maine and Lewiston-Auburn. Organizers also helped a similar program in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, get off the ground.

“It seems like magic when I look back and think of how it all came together,” said Linen Low.

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