By Ellina Buettner
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The weekly food giveaway in northwestern Baltimore began with a line of over 20 people, gray skies, brown paper bags, purple potatoes, and some red velvet cake.
Locals – young and old alike – waited together for 4 o’clock to come around so they could pick from the various free fruit and veggie bins set up outside of Dovecote Café in Reservoir Hill.
The March 1 event was hosted and labored by Food Rescue Baltimore, a project of Baltimore Free Farm that collects wasted food from markets and wholesalers in Maryland and redistributes it in struggling communities.
“It really was an answer to my prayers,” said attendee Rebekah Anthony. “With my condition, I have to eat an excessive amount of food to keep my weight up. My body doesn’t absorb the nutrients it’s given. I do get Food Stamps but going here enables me to spend that money on other things I might not have been able to afford to buy before.”
Anthony discovered the organization in November 2017 and attends each week to get the vegetables needed to heal her colon and immune system disorders.
Her goal is to become healthy enough to go back to work, but until that happens, Anthony volunteers at the Free Farm once a week to help others with similar struggles. Doing so has rebuilt the sense of dignity she lost when she went on disability.
“Other places might just give you something for free, or you might have to go to social services and just wait,” Anthony said. “This way, I’m benefitting myself and also benefiting others, and that gives me satisfaction.”
Since its launch in 2012, Food Rescue Baltimore has been handing out hundreds of thousands of pounds of food annually that would otherwise be thrown away due to cosmetic imperfections or nearing expiration dates.
According to Matt Burke, director of the program, about 40 percent of the food in the U.S. goes to waste on a commercial level.
“It’s crazy, it’s daunting, and it’s a little embarrassing to live in a country with this much wealth, and we’re squandering it all so to speak,” Burke said. “But at the same time, the other side of the coin is that hunger is a problem we do have the resources to solve.”
In addition to Dovecote Café, Burke and other volunteers redistribute about 3,000 pounds of food Monday through Friday at five other locations throughout the city, including at The Land of Kush in Mount Vernon and at Grace Baptist Church in the Alameda. The giveaways also act as platforms for food education, and organizers hope to expand to 12 locations by the end of 2018.
“I like a food challenge,” said Elizabeth Malby, a Mount Vernon resident and regular attendee. “I like to get things I’ve never seen before, and now, I’ve been coming long enough that I’ve learned about new vegetables.”
Malby uses the food to experiment with vegetarian recipes and enjoys cooking them for her friends and neighbors. She also volunteers at Food Not Bombs, a partnering nonprofit of Baltimore Free Farm, where she uses the redistributed ingredients to cook healthy meals for the homeless.
“Kindness has a similarly nourishing effect on both sides of the coin, if you are receiving it or giving it,” Burke said. “The goal is to develop a network which not only provides for people and recovers all the food that would be wasted, but also unifies these individual communities and give these individuals a voice on a greater city-wide scale. We can then build the space to address larger city-wide policy issues around the food-justice system as well.”
Muhammad Bashir, an urban criminal justice author and radio host, filled up two bags of kale as he explained how he uses it daily in omelets and juicers to keep his family members healthy. The Reservoir Hill resident appreciates the sense of community the program brings to the neighborhood, and likes to help out when it comes around each Thursday.
“Small things like this bring people out,” Bashir said. “You get to meet a lot of people who may know you in another capacity, and they see you out here and they get to know you as a neighbor, which is the most important thing.”
Burke is adamant about having no restraints on who can take advantage of the giveaways. He said he tries to create an open and welcoming atmosphere and encourages all people to take as much food as they want. His goal is to create a space where people can experience genuine kindness and respect.
“Sometimes when you go get something that someone is giving away– whether it’s from the government or other organizations– there’s a shame in it,” Rebekah Anthony said. “But with Matthew, it doesn’t matter what walk of life you’re from, what kind of person you are, or whatever situation you’re in.”
Since receiving a fellowship through Open Society Foundations in November 2017, Burke has been given the opportunity to work at Baltimore Food Rescue as a full-time, paid employee until May 2019. With the limited time and finances he has, he plans to train a group of volunteers to take care of the organization without his help so that by the time the funding expires, it can continue to live on and thrive.
“The first day that I went and volunteered, there was an immediate sense of fulfillment,” Burke said. “We’re not putting ourselves on a pedestal. We’re ordinary individuals from communities around Baltimore who are just putting in a little bit of personal time every week to do some work we believe in, and through that, we’re helping people out all around the city.”