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Food pantry leaders ask for statewide study of emergency food system funding and capacity
Summary
Leaders from food banks and community organizations told the joint committee that emergency food providers are stretched beyond original expectations and urged H.118 to create a special commission to assess financing, workforce and infrastructure needs across the Commonwealth.
Lev Ben-Azra, executive director of the Amherst Survival Center, told the Joint Committee on Agriculture that his pantry provided about 1,600,000 meals last year to some 11,500 neighbors and that the emergency food system was never designed to shoulder long‑term demand.
"The emergency food system was built about 40 years ago really as a charitable effort intended to help a bit with temporary needs," Ben-Azra said. "The reality we…
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