Vermont Food Bank asks legislature for $5 million to cover rising food purchases and disaster readiness

The Vermont Food Bank told a legislative committee on April 1 that it needs $5,000,000 in state support to sustain growing food distribution and cover new disaster-response responsibilities.

"I am here specifically to ask you to support our work with $5,000,000 in state funding," said Carrie Sailor, senior manager of government affairs for the Vermont Food Bank, during a slideshow presentation to the committee. She said the request is split into $1,750,000 in base funding tied to Vermont Emergency Management for disaster-response planning and $3,250,000 for food purchase and distribution.

The request arrives as the food bank reports a sharp, sustained rise in demand and shrinking levels of donated food. "It's been really helpful to see that data reinforce what we see showing up at our distributions and with our partners," said Sarah Kevlin, chief philanthropy officer at the Vermont Food Bank.

Why it matters: the food bank said its operations now reach roughly 72,000 individuals a month and that it distributed 14,500,000 pounds of food last year, with an unanticipated 25% increase in pounds this year. The bank said about 60% of its food historically comes from donations, roughly 20% from federal programs and about 20% purchased, but that donated food has fallen and purchased food has become both a larger share of supply and more expensive.

Carrie Sailor described a recent federal disruption: administrators canceled 12 truckloads of USDA discretionary commodity orders that had been expected for Vermont. Sailor said the canceled shipments—about one truckload per month—were largely protein items such as eggs and meat and that the loss equated to roughly 17% of the Food Bank’s federal commodity supply as reported to the committee. Those cancellations, she said, increase pressure to buy protein at higher market prices.

Sailor noted other federal program changes that affect local supply, including the end or reduction of certain local purchase and school/childcare programs and cuts to some CAP agency funding that supports local food shelves. The food bank also warned about proposed federal SNAP changes under discussion in Congress; SNAP (3SquaresVT in Vermont) supplements many households’ food purchases and the food bank said cuts to SNAP would further increase demand for charitable food.

The Food Bank emphasized its local purchasing program: it buys from nearly 300 Vermont farms and said more than half of the food it distributes is fresh (including frozen items that extend shelf life). The bank used state funds in prior years to scale local purchasing; it said its local-buy program purchased about $2.4 million last year.

Committee members pressed the bank on targeting and eligibility. The chair said he was skeptical that all recipients are in need and asked whether better monitoring or qualification should be required. Sailor said the bank is planning a service-area assessment in the coming year to identify underserviced communities and to inform where distribution should be focused; she also described the long waits many attendees endure as evidence of need.

Request status and context: Sailor said the governor’s recommended budget did not include funding for the bank’s request and that a House bill creating a grant program for the Vermonters Feeding Vermonters program (H.167) had recently passed the House. Committee members noted tight state fiscal constraints and said the full $5 million ask was unlikely to be approved without additional work by appropriations and committee leadership.

The presentation closed with the bank asking the committee to work with appropriations and to convey the reasoning behind the dollar amounts they requested as the legislature finalizes budget decisions.

Ending: The committee took the presentation under advisement; no committee vote or appropriation was recorded in the transcript excerpt provided.