A thousand motorists left the Westmoreland Fairgrounds on Wednesday each with more than 20 pounds of fresh produce and a box of dairy products. It was the first of planned twice-monthly distributions of perishable food bought by the federal government.
Joy Bryson of Irwin, who hasn’t worked at her job as a retail cashier since March 15, was among those served through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program.
She said the supplemental food, part of the federal response to the covid-19 pandemic, was “extremely helpful” for her family. “I have disabilities, an autistic son and another son with (multiple sclerosis),” she said.
Sal Brecht, a Vietnam veteran from Greensburg, was glad to learn about the drive-thru distribution at the fairgrounds in Mt. Pleasant Township. “This is the first I’ve seen locally,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue was on hand to help volunteers load the boxed food into recipients’ trunks.
“This is what America does best. It’s Americans helping Americans,” Perdue said of the program authorized to purchase up to $3 billion in fresh produce, meat and dairy products from agricultural suppliers that have seen many normal sales outlets dwindle during the pandemic. The food is packaged by distribution companies and channeled to families in need through local organizations.
“When the pandemic hit, schools closed and restaurants closed, and almost half of that food consumption supply chain virtually disappeared overnight,” Perdue said. “Then you had a real misalignment,” with some farmers destroying produce they couldn’t market.
“This covid-19 has been extremely tough on farmers that are already having economic distress,” he said. The Farmers to Families program, he said, is meant to redirect surplus food to families feeling the economic stress of the pandemic.
Wednesday’s first-come, first-served distribution began at 10 a.m. and wrapped up by 12:30 p.m. It partnered the federal program with fairgrounds officials, the Westmoreland County Food Bank, Turner Dairy Farms of Penn Hills and the Philadelphia-based Mid-Atlantic Regional Cooperative, which operates a produce distributions system for 23 participating food banks.
Turner was among nearly 200 vendors across the country that landed a collective $1.2 billion in contracts to supply food during the initial phase of the federal program, running through the end of June.
“We do expect to extend that for probably another couple of months,” Perdue said, noting vendors who perform well, subject to auditing, will have the chance to extend their contracts.
Turner’s $315,450 contract calls for it to supply 10,000 boxes of dairy products per month, through various distributions sites. The dairy, which obtains milk from 36 area farms, filled 1,000 boxes for Wednesday’s distribution with milk and cheese.
“We don’t look at this as a money-maker for Turner Dairy,” company President Chuck Turner said. “It’s keeping our people working. We haven’t had to lay anybody off, and this is definitely helping.”
Turner noted the company’s sales volume has dropped by about 25% during the pandemic.
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau President Rick Ebert, who is transitioning his family’s Derry Township dairy farm to sheep, has been supplying milk to Turner Dairy for more than three decades.
He agreed the pandemic has focused attention on the nation’s food supply chain while people have been staying at home more.
“So many people’s lives have been upended,” he said. “They’ve been laid off or lost their jobs. Your first security at home is your food supply.”
The Westmoreland County Food Bank intends to continue the Farmers to Families distributions twice a month at the fairgrounds, as long as food supplies are available, CEO Jennifer Miller said. Meat wasn’t available Wednesday. There are no income guidelines for food recipients.
Miller said the program is a valuable supplement to the food bank’s ongoing distribution of emergency food “at a time when charitable food assistance is in high demand.”
In 2019, the food bank distributed about 7 million pounds of food at 66 local partner sites. Since the advent of the pandemic in mid-March, the Westmoreland bank has provided more than 1.3 million pounds of food to more than 15,000 households, with each box of pantry staples expected to help sustain a family for up to 14 days.
