By Seth Rolbein
Maureen Salam jumped in her car the last Thursday afternoon of June and drove from Dennisport to Eastham to meet the Family Table Collaborative’s traveling food van in the Elks Lodge parking lot off Route 6, a trip she makes every two weeks.
She had ordered the day before and was picking up for two or three friends in her neighborhood as well, Moroccan meatballs and Lebanese eggplant, bread, maybe some stuffed peppers, dessert, bananas, prepared and packaged in the big kitchen the Collaborative runs at their headquarters in South Yarmouth.
“And I have to be sure to get some of that clam chowder,” she announced. A container of “Small Boats Big Taste,” the Fishermen Alliance’s weekly donation, was added to each bag of free meals. “I love this clam chowder. I think it’s better than anything else, Cook’s, Captain Parker, you name it.”
Meg McDonough from Brewster chimed in:
“I’m a clam chowder girl from way back,” she laughed. “That chowder is to die for.”
“How many meals today?” mused Chris Lavenets, echoing the question. She manages and quarterbacks the Family Table outreach and is as hands-on as it gets, driving the truck, handling the sign-up sheets, calling out first-name greetings to many of the people stopping by, 100-percent volunteer. “I’m counting 135. Next week, when we’re in Hyannis, it’ll be a lot more. We go to two sites back and forth, every other week.”
Family Table’s remarkable effort began as a rapid response to COVID, reports operations manager Deke Knight, at the same time and for the same reason the Fishermen’s Alliance began “Small Boats Big Taste,” creating chowders and stew to keep fishermen on the water and provide great local seafood to people facing food insecurity. A key partner became the Whole Foods Market in Hyannis, where Family Table picks up as many as 20 to 40 “banana boxes” every single day full of food that Whole Foods might otherwise send to composting for biofuel, or just landfill.
Given super-high standards for what Whole Foods will put on shelves, food they jettison can still be in almost perfect shape, certainly edible. Family Table’s culinary team turns that and other donations into great meals, salads, also packing fresh fruit. To make it mobile Whole Foods donated a refrigerated food truck, “a $90,000 piece of equipment” marvels Knight.
The Fishermen’s Alliance cannot match such magnitude but can contribute. Each week Family Table volunteers show up at the Fishermen’s Alliance’s Chatham office and load 12 cases of “Small Boats Big Taste,” 72 18-ounce containers of haddock chowder, clam chowder, and skate stew. While some recipients choose not to add fish to their orders, Family Table distributes as many as 700 meals a week, to Councils on Aging and other communal locations as well as direct to individuals, so demand still more than outpaces supply.
A week later, as another Family Table crew with Lavenets in the lead set up in the Hyannis Youth and Community Center parking lot off Bassett Lane, dozens of cars were lined up for deliveries starting at 4:30; by afternoon’s end, almost 370 meals were shared.
Mary Jo Felice, who lives in an elderly housing site in Hyannis, comes every two weeks to pick up for herself and six or seven neighbors who have a hard time getting out.
“People are so grateful,” she said. “And everyone knows when you help someone out, you feel good too.”
“Mary Jo, do you want chowder?” asked one of the Family Table team.
“Oh yes, all of them, but just the white!” she called back. Her friends prefer the traditional chowders, haddock and clam, to a tomato-based skate stew.
Chicken was the donated protein of the moment, so chowder joined Family Table preparations of pepper ranch chicken, chicken fajita, lemon chicken, along with broccoli alfredo and sweet potato gnocchi. Pain d’Avignon bread was an added treat.
“Our mantra is to say yes to donations,” smiled Deke. “It could be a home gardener with tomatoes, it could be a large wholesaler. A little or a lot, we try to say yes.”
Another mantra needed no explanation: Every person arriving at these distributions was treated as a neighbor, not a hint of judgement or condescension.
Lavenets offered one more tenet on her way to Hyannis from Eastham, driving the food truck in record-breaking heat. Asked how she was faring, whether traffic was a burden, she scoffed:
“People need food. Doesn’t matter the temperature, traffic, or weather. We’ll be there.”