Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
SALISBURY, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — With the rise of prices in recent years, groceries haven’t gotten any cheaper. Our Neighbors’ Table, a hunger nonprofit from the North Shore, is looking for the solution.
One thing these nonprofits realize is the negative stigma that can surround the idea of food pantries. The solution, is changing the label.
Instead of calling themselves a “food pantry,” the nonprofit calls them “markets.” Sharing many similarities to a usual grocery store, like shopping carts and built-in freezers, the idea is to make shoppers feel more dignified, even at a low point in their lives.
“But ultimately there’s a stigma about going to a food pantry, and we want to take that away because we know when we do, that more people who need help will come and get it,” Will Courtney, Director of Communications at Our Neighbors’ Table, told WBZ NewsRadio.
Executive Director Lyndsey Haight thinks that keeping people’s dignity is the main goal, along with keeping them fed.
“When our guests and our community members come, the first things they say to us is ‘wow what a dignified experience’,” Haight told WBZ NewsRadio. “And so to be able to empower them, and give them the opportunity to be able to walk out with their head held high, that’s how they pick themselves up the next morning and get to work.”
This all comes after the need for food pantries grew 30% since 2020, and another 20% since just last year. This proves true when looking at the 30,000 pounds of food a week that the nonprofit runs through.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.
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