Food Resources

People throughout the South Shore are making trade-offs between paying for food and paying for other necessities like heat for their home.

Given this startling trend of growing food insecurity and hunger, it is clear there is a direct need for more quality, nutritious food for this region’s low-income individuals and families. 

In the fall of 2002, SSCAC's Food Resources program formed their own Food Distribution Center with the goal of getting more nutritious food to more hungry people in the most cost-effective way through coordinated food pick-up, transport, storage and distribution.

SSCAC's Food Distribution Center

DISTRIBUTES food – free-of-charge - to South Shore emergency food assistance programs, which then provide it to people residing in a 25-town area.

STORES food safely for our member food assistance programs, including dry product on rows of sorted shelves, as well as frozen foods, fresh produce, dairy and other perishable foods in our commercial refrigerators and freezers. We also provide separate storage facilities for 7 member pantries who order food from the Greater Boston Food Bank.

TRANSPORTS bagged food safely from our warehouse to local Councils on Aging and Head Starts; and fresh produce directly from local farms to these and many other agencies. We also help transport food from the Greater Boston Food Bank right to the doors of 4 of our larger member pantries.

Since SSCAC's Food Resources program conducted the first distribution in late 2003, hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals have stepped up to help their neighbors in need. We receive:

Regular Donations from schools, libraries, restaurants, newspapers, businesses, grocery stores, clubs, neighborhoods, and office complexes.

Large Annual Donations from the Post Office Workers Can Drive and the New England Food Foundation.

Steady Stream of food from local organizations that serve as food drop-off sites.  We also use donated funds to purchase certain high-demand foods when our food stock is low.

• Food pantries
• Soup kitchens
• Shelters
• Councils on Aging
• Families participating in Head Start programs
• Low-income housing developments
• Boys & Girls Clubs
• Adult day programs