Innovative program continues for Vermont eaters, restaurants, and farmers
Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Everyone Eats program, providing COVID relief support for Vermont restaurants, farmers, and meal recipients since August 1, 2020, is confirmed to continue beyond September 30, 2022. To date, this program has provided over 3.2 million meals to Vermont eaters in need, along with $32 million to the local restaurants who make the meals, and over $3 million to Vermont farmers and food producers whose ingredients are used in the meals.
Everyone Eats is an innovative, multi-sector COVID relief program providing economic support to local restaurants, economic benefit to farmers, and restaurant-prepared meals for food-insecure Vermonters negatively impacted by COVID.
All three pillars of the program — restaurants, farmers, and eaters — continue to benefit significantly from the relief this program provides.
The contract is being extended to allow VEE to continue providing meals through the holiday season and the coldest months, using the remaining available balance of state funds which the legislature allocated to the program as a component of the COVID-19 emergency response and recovery. The Vermont Everyone Eats program is currently 90% funded by FEMA and 10% funded by a special allocation from the Vermont State Legislature.
This program, which currently distributes approximately 29,000 meals per week to eaters across Vermont, engages nearly 700 restaurants, farms, food producers, hubs, and distribution partners throughout the state’s fourteen counties.
For more information on the program or how to receive a meal, visit the Vermont Everyone Eats website at https://vteveryoneeats.org/.
Vermont Everyone Eats provides nutritious meals to Vermonters in need of food assistance as well as a stabilizing source of income for Vermont restaurants, farmers, and food producers. Vermont Everyone Eats is funded through a contract provided by the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) and is advised by a Statewide Task Force including perspectives from restaurant, economic development, and hunger relief advocates.
Westminster, Vermont. [Sept 30th] #VTEveryoneEats www.vteveryoneeats.org