Boston area organizations have mobilized quickly in response to COVID shutdowns. There are a variety of food and meal pick-up options depending on the needs of your household.  

Project Bread Food Source Hotline – continues to have the most up-to-date information on food resources, including new school sites, food pantries, and federal programs. They can also help callers with SNAP applications over the phone. 

FoodSource Hotline: 800-645-8333 – TTY 1-800-377-1292

Hours: 

8am-7pm, Monday-Friday

10am-2pm on Saturdays  

The Greater Boston Food Bank – has released a list of state-wide food resources for COVID-19 hunger relief including school meal sites, pantry locations, and support on signing up for SNAP. 

Meal Pick-up Sites [Boston children and teens only] -The City of Boston will provide free meals to all children and teens at various locations and times across the City.

Ethos Meals on Wheels [For older adults] – Ethos offers a number of programs and services to assist older adults through this crisis including Meals on Wheels and Community Cafes for grab & go meals.

Since the suspension of our Fresh Truck mobile markets program on March 13th, our team has been focused on developing a new model for food distribution that reduces the risk of further transmission of COVID-19 while increasing food access opportunities citywide.

Overview

Fresh Box is a community-based food distribution program developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The program is designed for social distancing, citywide reach across Boston, and cost-efficiency. The goal of Fresh Box is to provide food access for Boston residents throughout the duration of the COVID-19 lockdown and to support local businesses. The program is supported by the Boston Resiliency Fund.

How it works

About Fresh has partnered with Katsiroubas Bros. Produce to leverage their fleet of 65-refrigerated box trucks, 200-person labor force, and their international supply chain network to offer pre-packed ‘Fresh Truck Boxes’ with about a week’s worth of produce to the Boston households least able to access food at this time.

About Fresh has partnered with the City of Boston Office of Food Access, the Age Strong Commission, and a network of community partners to implement this program.

Eligibility

Because our capacity for door-to-door deliveries of Fresh Boxes is limited we are prioritizing deliveries for Boston households that:

-Are homebound either due to illness, disability or quarantine and do not have friends/family that can bring food

-Have been relying on the emergency food system and the food pantry or meal program they visit has been closed

-Have lost their job or part of their income and cannot afford groceries at this time

-Are at high risk for coronavirus and do not have access to a regular food source

If your household meets any of these criteria and you would like to inquire about receiving a Fresh Box please email the Office of Food access at  food@boston.gov.

If your household does not qualify for delivery but remains in need of food resources please see the COVID Food Resource Guide for information about additional food programs available in Boston.

Volunteering

We are recruiting volunteers with vehicles that are willing to support our team’s work to deliver Fresh Boxes. As volunteer opportunities arise, we will email the list with specifics about time, location, and specific volunteer duties.  Sign-up to volunteer here.

For questions about Fresh Box or how you can help please reach out to covidresponse@aboutfresh.org.

Support our work to get critical food to households affected by COVID-19. 

About Fresh COVID-19 Update March 23, 2020

The Coronavirus public health crisis is having a profound impact on the communities we serve. As levels of need continue to rise there is much to be done to ensure that Boston households are able to put food on the table.

What we have learned in the last 10-days

The About Fresh team has been focused on collecting insights from our shoppers, community partners, peer organizations, and the City to inform a new model for food distribution that reduces the risk of further transmission of COVID-19 while increasing food access opportunities citywide. We have learned a lot through this process, and want to share what is our driving decisions as we prepare to launch new operational models.

Creating safer Fresh Truck markets – We are modifying our mobile market program to limit as much contact as possible between Fresh Truck shoppers, staff, and the products we carry at the markets. This includes:

-Designing new systems to enable social distancing while shoppers wait in line, shop, and pay.

-All staff and volunteers will be expected to follow our detailed safety protocol including additional distancing and sanitizing measures.

-PPE and sanitizing equipment will be made available to all staff, volunteers, partners, and shoppers that need it.

Reaching people where they are – Fresh Truck is designed to quickly and efficiently serve households in hard to reach locations across the city. This continues to be critical in our response to COVID-19.

-Although lower risk individuals are able to grocery shop, we want the distance they travel on foot or public transportation to be as short as possible. Fresh Truck market locations will be at housing developments, senior centers, and in other residential settings.

-Based on the CDC’s recommendation for those that are at higher risk we are working on last-mile delivery solutions to get food to people’s doorsteps. This is as complex as it is critical and it will require specialized communication systems and delivery infrastructure. We are tapping local partners like City Fresh Foods for best practices on managing last-mile delivery.

Cross-sector partnerships are key – We know the city of Boston comes together in a crisis. We are leveraging the insight and resources of a multi-faceted network of organizations to design an emergency food response that extends beyond About Fresh programs.

-To ensure that we are getting food to the most impacted households we are collaborating with the Office of Food Access, social service organizations, housing agencies, health centers, and community organizers on outreach and enrollment.

-On the supply side, our food wholesalers, Katsiroubas Brothers, have stepped up in an enormous way bringing critical resources to the table including their large-scale trucking fleet and grocery packing capacity.

We have come away from conversations over the past 10 days encouraged by the strength, determination, and spirit of the agencies, organizations and resident leadership that we are shoulder to shoulder with in this work. Together, we will continue to adapt solutions and find ways to get food to households that need it most.

The Fresh Truck team is launching the first pilot of our new market format tomorrow, Tuesday, March 24. We expect to continue ramping up operations through this week. We will continue to share updates as they come.

Stay safe,

The About Fresh Team

About Fresh COVID-19 Self-Isolation and Risk Mitigation Protocol 

About Fresh has developed a self-isolation and risk mitigation protocol to guard our team, shoppers, partners, and the broader community from the harmful impacts of COVID-19. The standards put in place by About Fresh exceed the stringency of guidance of World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH). 

Based on guidance from the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) the term close contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 is considered: face-to-face contact less than 6ft away for more than 10-minutes while a person with a confirmed case of COVID-19 is presenting with symptoms.

About Fresh COVID-19 Self Isolation and Risk Mitigation Protocol

• Regardless of “close contact”, all About Fresh staff that interact with any individual who has a confirmed case of COVID-19 are prohibited from our office, warehouse, and all About Fresh direct operations for 2-weeks.
• Any About Fresh staff member that encounters symptoms, however mild, associated with COVID-19 (e.g. cough, fever, shortness of breath etc.) are prohibited from the office, warehouse, and all About Fresh programs for 2-weeks past their last day of symptoms. 
• Starting today, March 24, all About Fresh staff are required to take their own temperature before arriving at the About Fresh office, warehouse, or About Fresh direct programs. Any temperature reading above 100 degrees will trigger an automatic 2-week quarantine.

The About Fresh team is constantly monitoring the latest public health guidance on the management of COVID-19 and will adjust our protocol accordingly as new guidance emerges.

About Fresh is suspending Fresh Truck mobile markets immediately, starting Friday, March 13

To protect About Fresh shoppers and help slow the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), About Fresh is temporarily suspending its Fresh Truck Mobile Markets starting immediately, on Friday, March 13. Markets will remain closed for the foreseeable future.  

About Fresh regrets having to take this sudden step. We have made this difficult decision in light of information from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Center for Disease Control. 

In the weeks ahead, we intend to collaborate with our community partners, other food-access organizations, and the City of Boston to find other ways to get healthy food to those who need it. We will post updates about any new opportunities this creates to use your SNAP or HIP benefits to purchase fresh produce when we have news to share. 

At About Fresh, we are inspired by our vision of a day when everyone has the food they need to be happy, healthy, and hopeful. We look forward to re-opening our Fresh Truck Mobile Markets as soon as the MA DPH determines that the risk of continued Coronavirus spread has declined enough for us to do so. 

Until then, we wish everyone – our neighbors, our shoppers, our partners, and our staff – good health. 

Thank you.