Spoonfuls Spotlight: Ludlow Veterans Center
Rich Engram-Bright (pictured left), himself a veteran, is a Spoonfuls Food Recovery Coordinator on our Hampden County route, where the Ludlow Veterans Center is located. He’s pictured here with Eric Segundo (center) and the team at the Center. Thanks to Rich, Eric, and all of the veterans in our community for your service.
Perfectly good, wholesome food should never end up in a landfill – especially when there are so many people who need it. Among those disproportionately affected by hunger are veterans, who are at least 7.4% times more likely to face food insecurity than their non-veteran counterparts. In fact 1 in 9 U.S. veterans faces food insecure.
That’s why Spoonfuls is grateful to partner with community-based organizations that reach veterans and their families with fresh, healthy food. (In fact, more than 50% of the organizations serviced through Spoonfuls’ deliveries serve at least some veterans.) And one, the Ludlow Veterans Center, is exclusively dedicated to serving veterans.
Learn more about partnership in this interview with LVC’s Director of Veterans Services, Eric Segundo.
Tell us about Ludlow Veterans Center. How does your food program work?
The Ludlow Veterans Center services all veterans who can make their way to the center. We provide an array of services, from assisting with Veterans Affairs claims, to offering a dental clinic, to hosting a monthly veterans’ lunch. We started our food pantry a little over a year ago because of the food insecurity veterans, and their families, in the area have been experiencing and how difficult it was for many of them to obtain services. We want our pantry to enable veterans to have more financial flexibility by alleviating their food budget because groceries are a significant cost. Plus, the pantry serves as more than a stable food source. It gives folks a chance to socialize, and through their conversations with other veterans at the pantry, they become aware of other available resources.
What unique barriers do veterans or their loved ones face accessing fresh, healthy food that others may not realize?
One substantial issue I see is that veterans often believe that others need food assistance more than they do, whether it be another veteran or someone else struggling with food insecurity. I hear from veterans who feel they are not the most deserving of these services, so they don’t take advantage of food programs like ours. In reality, though, we want any veteran in need of food to come to the pantry because everyone deserves that support in their day-to-day life. It also helps us get a better understanding of just how large the need is in and around Ludlow, and it can help us ensure our program continues to meet that need.
Ludlow Veterans Center recently transitioned to being a full-time community partner with Spoonfuls. How will that impact your pantry program and the people relying on it for food?
We’ve been receiving deliveries from Spoonfuls here and there throughout the summer when they had extra food on the truck, but now we’re getting weekly deliveries. We’re overwhelmed by the added benefit that Spoonfuls provides us! Before we had to limit the number of certain items that people could take from the pantry, but now with Spoonfuls’ weekly deliveries, we can allow a family to take something like an extra meat product because we consistently have much more available. We – our pantry and the people using it – are far less limited now that we’re partnered with Spoonfuls.
What has been your favorite thing about working with Spoonfuls so far?
The variety of food we receive from Spoonfuls is an enormous plus. Getting meat, produce, and prepared meals from your drop-offs gives us more flexibility to provide a broader range in our pantry so pantry users can get more of the foods they want and need. There were times before our partnership when we went entirely without sought-after products like fresh produce because they weren’t always available to order when we were stocking the pantry. Now, Spoonfuls’ deliveries provide us with those quality, sought-after foods week after week. It’s just amazing to have that increase in the quantity, quality, and variety of the food we offer at the pantry.
Veterans Day is approaching, but we know that’s not the only day we should be thinking about veterans. What can people do to support veterans all year round?
Just say thank you. When our veterans served, they served every day of the year, away from family, away from friends, and sometimes in places they were lucky to come home from. Everything we do today, whether it’s work, school, or even just being who we are, is because of a veteran serving to secure us the freedom we have today. So truly the best thing to do is to just show your appreciation.
Anything else you want our readers to know?
On behalf of our folks here, we want to say thank you not only to the Spoonfuls team but to Spoonfuls’ donors. Because of their donations, they’re changing lives. I say that literally – they are changing lives. There are people who went hungry that are no longer going hungry because of Spoonfuls and the donations to Spoonfuls that enable their food recovery work.
