NAHANT — The town continues to have the Veterans Mobile Food Market — a farmer’s market style distribution of assorted foods for Veterans in need, and their families. The food is distributed at the Town Hall from the side entrance at Pleasant Street. According to Jon Lazar, the town’s veterans agent, they will be preparing food for about 50 families for their next event in June.
“In terms of the numbers, they went down a little, to about 40; during COVID it was about 60. Since May the numbers are going up, maybe it has something to do with the economy,” said Lazar.
The next events are planned for June 1 and July 6 from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Town Hall, and all veterans, widows, and widowers, as well as the dependents of veterans are invited to participate. All first-time participants need to verify their veteran status.
“This is designed for veterans, widows of veterans and their families,” said Lazar. “We get proteins, fruits, and vegetables, and we do this once a month.”
Veterans Mobile Food Market is sponsored by the Town of Nahant’s Department of Veterans’ Services, in partnership with the Greater Boston Food Bank and Bank of America. The food market also has partnerships with the American Legion Auxiliary and the Nahant Council on Aging.
The communities of Nahant, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop hold these events on the first Wednesday of every month. The food is provided by donations from the Greater Boston Food Bank.
“We get about 1,000 pounds of food on average,” said Lazar. “You have people in teams packaging the food and delivering the food to the communities.”
According to Lazar, the event grew since it first began in 2016 – at first there were around 22 recipients at events each month. The following year that number increased to up to 45 recipients on average. In 2020 the food market saw up to 60 people a month.
“When the pandemic was at its highest, we had around 60 people show up each month,” said Lazar. “It shifted back to 40 to 45, but with these new variants I think it could go up again soon.”
Lazar said around 14 volunteers are helping this year, along with the Department of Public Works (DPW), which will help deliver food. The participants are required to bring their own reusable cloth grocery bags; as the town’s supply is very low. The veterans are responsible for transporting the food distributed to them, and for that end they are strongly encouraged to bring someone who can assist them or to send their authorized representatives.
In advance of the next events, the town reminds that everyone who has participated in our program in the past is already registered. For more information, please visit https://nahant.org/veterans-services/foodbank/.
Oksana Kotkina can be reached at [email protected].
