SmartTranscript of House Agriculture Committee's Zoom Meeting

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[Leila Morgan ]: I wanna start. Leila Morgan, Grand Isle County, West Milton. [John Sales ]: I'm John Sales. I'm CEO of the Vermont Food Bank, and really happy to be here and have a chance to talk to you. [Carrie Sailor ]: Yes. And I introduced myself earlier, but I'm Carrie Sailor. I'm the manager of government and public affairs at the Vermont Food Bank, and I am coming here today from Linden. I'm gonna hand our just a little paperwork around to you while John gets started. [John Sales ]: I live right here in Montpelier. Yeah. I guess I don't think about it because it can actually if it was flat, you could see my hospital. You know? So [President Nelson ]: How long do you paperwork. [John Sales ]: But it's not. So thank you all, for taking the time. A couple of the committee members have been here before, so you've been through this. But, really, what my goal in the next few minutes is to give you an overview of what the food bank does and who we are in Vermont. Thank you, Carrie. And and I'll go pretty quickly. This won't be the only opportunity the chair has let me know. So if if I go through something quickly, glad to ask answer questions at any time, and we'll be back and to go in more depth. So the food bank's mission is to gather and share quality food and nurture partnerships so that no one in Vermont goes hungry. And there's we have nurture partnerships in there because no one entity or or sector can solve hunger. We all have to work together to do that. And we'll be talking more later about the Vermont food security road map, which is a plan to do that. We are the only food bank in Vermont. Each of your, districts and every almost every town in Vermont has a partner of the food bank, which is a food shelf or a meal site, a senior center, senior meal site, maybe an after school program. If it's a a nonprofit organization that serves food to people with low incomes, most of them are partners at the Vermont Food Bank and get food from us. We have three distribution centers. One right here in Barrie, serves all northern part of the state, kind of from Washington County north, including the northeast kingdom and Chittenden and Franklin counties. We have a distribution center in Rutland that serves Rutland County, Addison County, and so Bennington County. And then in Brattleboro, it serves the the the rest of the state. Berry is kind of our HQ. When I started the food bank almost sixteen years ago, that was the only location we serve the entire state out of there. And we since opened the the Brattleboro and Rutland locations as it's gotten more complex, the work we do. So what is the work we do? You know, our core mission is distributing food. We also operate a bunch of programs, which we can talk about. But last year, it was fourteen point five million pounds of food. So with three distribution centers, with warehouses, with trucks and drivers, we are a food distribution business and a mid sized one for the state of Vermont. Pre COVID, we were distributing about ten million pounds of food, ten to eleven. At the peak of of the food distributions, we did about twenty million pounds. And so it's come down a little bit, not because the need has come down as you heard from doctor Niles, but it's because the resources have decreased. And so we just just don't have as much food shelves and meal sites are seeing more people than ever coming and looking for assistance. We do Three Squares Vermont, which you all are probably familiar with. It's the SNAP program in the state of Vermont. So the food bank as a kind of a pass through entity from the state of Vermont does SNAP application assistance. We actually help people sit down at at kitchen table of, an older Vermonter and help them fill out the application and go through the process of submitting it and answer the questions that come back. It is the most efficient and effective way for people to who can afford the food that their families want and need to get it. We also do the SNAP education program, which is federal pass through funds support that, and that's things like nutrition education, cooking demonstrations. If you've got a a bunch of turnips and kale, what are you gonna do with that? How are you gonna turn it into a delicious meal? And there's lots of ways to do that, which actually I have benefited from too. It's not just people with low incomes that, that can be more creative with their diets, I think. So our impact, seventy two thousand people a month are touched by the Vermont Food Bank. Now that's not the same seventy two thousand people every month. Right? It it's kind of cyclical. People flow in and out. You think of of a family who's, you know, doing okay. Oh, two of the cars now need winter tires. So I'm gonna be really short for the next three months. So what do I do? Well, I can I can displace some of that need to buy food by going to the food shelf, which is the purpose for us to be there? Right? We encourage people to use those resources that are there. And then farm supported, two hundred and ninety nine farms. We purchased from farms. We glean at farms, which is harvesting what the farmers aren't gonna harvest and get that into the charitable food system. And and farms donate to us. In fact, a lot of the farms that we purchase from also donate food. We have a program also where we make grants to our local partners, and then they can purchase in small quantities from smaller farms. So we deal in in gaylords and trucks, not in what fits in the back of the station wagon. And so it's much more efficient for us to make a grant to a partner, and they can buy half a dozen CSA shares, which then get delivered to the food shelf and distributed. And then the partners, there's about two hundred and fifteen, two twenty at any given time, and that doesn't include our partners for Veggie Van Gogh, which are schools and hospitals across the state. All told, we probably have about three hundred partners, organizations that we work with. So where does the food come from? Some of our food comes from the federal government. We, again, delegated from the state. We run two federal programs. The Commodity Supplemental Food Program is for people over sixty who are income eligible. They're under one hundred and thirty percent of the federal poverty level. And it's a box of commodities. We get USDA trucks us the food. We order it. They send it to us. We build the boxes, and then the boxes are delivered out into each community. Can we ask questions if we go, or do [President Nelson ]: you want to get in the hole? [Leila Morgan ]: You're okay with with questions? [President Nelson ]: What what kind of commodities would be in the box? [John Sales ]: So it will be it's a, a couple of canned fruits and vegetables. There's always some pasta. There's always either shelf stable milk or dry milk. There's juice. There's sand. And then, usually some kind of protein. So there's often it's like a pouched tuna or chicken or maybe some chili. So it's a variety. It's about seventy dollars worth of groceries, and it's meant as a supplement to their diets. [President Nelson ]: K. So these aren't actual commodities that are [John Sales ]: Well, commodity foods. [President Nelson ]: We Yeah. But they're not basic states. Like No. Butter out of storage or cheese. [Carrie Sailor ]: No. Well, actually There is cheese. Actually, there is cheese. [John Sales ]: That's the way the program started. [President Nelson ]: Yes. [John Sales ]: Right? But it's saying that. Yes. And it's now it's morphed to grocery items. We just call them the nomenclature is commodities. K. Any foods that we get [President Nelson ]: from the feds. That's what I wanted to [John Sales ]: know. Yeah. But but you're right. It's not commodity products. [Carrie Sailor ]: I think the the clarifying point is that they are food products that the United States Department of Agriculture is contracting with producers [President Nelson ]: Mhmm. [Carrie Sailor ]: That are US producers who US grown and US produced foods are coming into that system. And there's a specific list of options that we have, and they're meant to meet nutritional needs for people. So there are certain categorizations that we can order from, but all of those categories have to be present in those boxes. And they are essentially, you know, like key items that Vermont that national farms grow. Right? Wheat, dairy, those kind of things. Yep. [John Sales ]: So the TFAP program, the emergency food assistance program, that's actually the one that was originally started with the cheese Mhmm. And they're emptying out the cheese case. And now it's that full range of grocery products, mostly shelf stable, but also some frozen. We also get USDA, which are called bonus. And that's when there's an imbalance in the ag markets, the USDA will sweep in and purchase. So too many blueberries, they'll just buy huge loads of blueberries, freeze them, and then distribute them through food banks and we'll distribute them. We often get Maine blueberries. It's great. [Leila Morgan ]: Before you move on, representative Lipsky had a question. [Speaker 4 ]: Yeah. Quick comment. For those of you who weren't on this committee last year, our field trip to the your headquarters was probably the meeting most worth it in the year. That said, at the time, I recall you speaking that transport from your headquarters to the whether it's Brattleboro or because of the typography going from Mountain Mountain or getting down to Brattleboro or a a sort of a real pinch point in how you were able to service certain providers. Have you gained any we more capacity of that there. [John Sales ]: And I wouldn't I wouldn't not additional capacity, but we shifted things around some. So last year, our Rutland facility didn't have a freezer. So it was not a full service facility. Since then, we've built a freezer and a new cooler in Rutland, and now we have a a truck and a driver station there. And so we're doing regular deliveries out of Rutland, and it gives us a little more flexibility in how we're serving the state, which is a real benefit. Yeah. I'd encourage anyone to come in come up to Barrie and take a tour of our facility. And then donated foods, which is about sixty percent of what we distribute, Those are corporate and individual donors, mostly grocery industry. All of the we clean at the stores, so we stop in the stores and pick up all the the items that are going out of inventory. Plus, we do fresh produce cleaning at most grocery stores. Hannaford delivers two tractor trailer loads a month, but I think it's been three lately [Carrie Sailor ]: Mhmm. [President Nelson ]: Of [John Sales ]: what they call salvage, which is dented inventory, broken multi packs, stuff that's out of inventory. That gets sorted and and is available to all of our partners at for no cost. Through our national organization, Feeding America, we have access to donations from around the country from the, you know, multinational corporations like Cargill and Tyson and General Mills. They Feeding America holds those relationships, and we can access and donated food from that. And then, of course, local farms donate to us, and we glean there. The third category is purchased food, which is, as you'll see, is one that's been growing because it's especially since COVID, as the need has grown, the amount of donated food and government food has not grown as much. And so across the country, food banks are purchasing more and more of the [Leila Morgan ]: food we distribute. President Nelson. [President Nelson ]: Thank you, chairman Durfee. How how fast are your reactions on, like, cleaning? Like, if a farmer has five acres of sweet corn and they're selling it and they're selling it and the kids are done selling. I mean, you know, sweet corn is it goes from being good to eat to still can eat it to well, that's hard to eat. How fast are your reactions to go out and hit that to, like, clean a field? I would [John Sales ]: carry my note. I'd say we'd probably need at least a week. [Carrie Sailor ]: It does take us a little while. We, run a volunteer program to glean, so we do have to recruit volunteers. There are certain farms that we have relationships with where we have weekly glean scheduled. So we know in advance throughout the summer that we're gonna come during certain weeks or once each week, we'll come on Tuesdays for two hours and glean whatever is available. There are a number of gleaning organizations in the state, and they work together as part of the gleaning collective. And I would recommend that you have them come in and have a conversation about that because I think it's regional. I think it really depends on everything. [President Nelson ]: Thanks for up in Newport, Durb area in NECA? [Carrie Sailor ]: It's it's sometimes NECA does do gleaning, but Salvation Farms, I believe, serves that region when they are able. And it's a little bit of a stretch. I did I I can say every region is not covered equally. Right. With gleaning, it is a very labor intensive process just as farming is. And so building a relationship with an organization who does that can be a key way for farms to sort of contribute food to the local food system. [President Nelson ]: Okay. If we were to be able to have time and clean it ourselves and have two hundred dozen years of corn ready to go [John Sales ]: We can we can make that happen. [Carrie Sailor ]: Get it to NECA. That NECA is where that would go. Yep. [President Nelson ]: Yeah. In case to NECA, they had more than they needed. Is it something that's not We will [John Sales ]: coordinate that quickly. We're we're used to to dealing with, perishable product and moving it quickly. [Speaker 4 ]: Alright. [John Sales ]: Cool. Getting the volunteers coordinated and together. [President Nelson ]: Yeah. Thank you. [John Sales ]: Oh, okay. There's that one. You sort of covered. So I just I yeah. I covered all this. And as I said, donated food about sixty percent, and those are the places it comes from. I put community food drives at the bottom because they're important and they connect us to communities, but, actually, the amount of food that comes from those is very small. I would say less than one percent of what we distribute. So this is a slide that shows the increase in the amount of of percentage of pounds distributed that are purchased that we've seen. This is since two eight twenty eighteen. If you went back to two thousand and nine when I started at the food bank, it would probably be five to seven percent. So it's been there's been a steady growth there, in the number of pounds we purchase. But you can see as we've been purchasing, we've put more and more of our budget toward Vermont grown foods. You can particularly see in two thousand and one or twenty twenty one, in the midst of COVID, there was a lot of of ARPA and CARES Act money. We were the need was just out of control, and so we were getting some of that money flowing through, and we wanted that money to, as much as possible, stay in the state. So we started doing a lot of forward contracting and purchasing from Vermont farms. And then the food the food goes the federal food to gets directly distributed and goes through our network partner, food shelves, and meal sites. Our veggie van goes, donated food and purchased food goes through those. And those are our, local. We do about thirty of them around the state. I think, they're produce and fresh food distributions, and they're usually in a parking lot. They're associated with a school or a hospital. We can serve, you know, one to four hundred families in about two hours. People drive through, tell us how many families are picking up for volunteers, put the food in their car, and they drive off. It's it's really seamless. And then the SASH program, it's support and services at home. It's a Medicaid program to support older disabled folks, and we do produce drops at SASH sites and that gets distributed. And then our youth programs, which includes the backpack program, which is a bag of food that can get tucked into a student's backpack on Friday afternoon, so there's some extra food at home. We serve about, during the school year, about fourteen hundred students a week. [Carrie Sailor ]: And I'm gonna stop there. I just wanna be conscious of the time that Hagar Free has. So I will draw your attention to the handout that I shared with you. A lot of this work could not happen without the support of the legislature over the past few years. As John explained prior to the pandemic, we were a much smaller organization, ten million pounds of food and compared to now we're looking at fourteen to fifteen million pounds of food per year. In the past, the legislature has been a great partner in supporting the work that we're doing primarily in food purchase and distribution. Our request this year is for five million dollars to help support that. One point seven five million is for responsive readiness funding, which deals directly with what, Doctor. Niles was talking about, the long tail of recovery from those disasters, the impacts on communities from, flooding, from the pandemic, from the series of disasters that we've all lived through over the past four years and five years. The Vermont Food Bank has seen that too, and we really feel the need for state support to be ready for the next version of that and to continue to be good partners to communities around the state. The other portion of the funding we're requesting is three point two five million dollars for food purchase and distribution to continue to do what John just talked about and probably most importantly for this committee to continue to purchase and distribute Vermont grown food through a program called Vermonters Feeding Vermonters. And I hope that we'll be able to come back and talk more specifically about that another time. [Leila Morgan ]: Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for being mindful of the block of people, for sure, ask me to come back in. Okay. So please feel free to stay now if you've got [President Nelson ]: Yep. [Leila Morgan ]: That's [President Nelson ]: happening. [Leila Morgan ]: So [President Nelson ]: important Yeah. Yeah. [Leila Morgan ]: Is your face around the state house, but maybe we don't all know you. Yes. Why take a minute to introduce yourself as well as that's the organization. And do you have that link that you need there? Yeah. [Anur Horton ]: I do, except I'm not sharing right slides. So just give me one. It's up there. Okay. Hi. I'm Anur Horton. I'm the executive director of Hunger Free Vermont. So it is really great to be here with you all, and to have the opportunity to just offer you an overview of what is Hunger Food Vermont, what do we do. And, one thing we do is partner really, really closely with the Vermont Food Bank. That's we're here together and that's, that's, often how we like it to be. Because while the Vermont Food Bank engages in the kind of immediate response to people who do not have enough income or other ways of accessing food. We work on the long term structural changes that are necessary to, make it possible someday for the charitable food system to not have to distribute that many million pounds of food every year. So our mission is to end the injustice of hunger for everyone. And we prioritize the people who are most affected by hunger and work toward permanent systemic change. So we are the statewide organization in Vermont that is dedicated to expanding equitable access for everybody to all of the different federal nutrition programs. So, Representative Nelson, you asked earlier when Doctor. Niles was here about SNAP and about school meals and what would happen to people in Vermont if those programs weren't operating the way that they are. And, you know, that would be catastrophic. And so what we try what we work to do is, and this is just a list. This is a list of, all the different federal nutrition programs that exist in Vermont. And Vermont has done a really good job. And thanks to this legislature and this committee, in fact, in the past of really expanding and strengthening these programs. Universal school meals being a key recent example and also summer EBT, a new program that we had for the first time here in Vermont last summer. It's a federal program that the state worked really hard to implement that provided some extra funding for families with low, low income families with children in school to purchase additional food over the summer. Because when school's not in session, it's the hungriest time of the year for families with kids. [Leila Morgan ]: Representative Brown. Sorry to interrupt. Sorry. [Representative Brown ]: I I just wondered how how does that the CSFP and TFAP then fit into because those are federal programs. Right? They're not considered nutritional or they're just different? [Anur Horton ]: They so they are, they are federal food programs. They, because the food bank runs those for the state of Vermont. Those are two programs that hunger free Vermont doesn't focus on. Food bank does a really good job with those and their food distribution programs. And unlike the button, all of these programs are not food distribution programs. These are programs that either provide funding on an electronic benefits card for eligible low income households to use at grocery stores or other food vending stores to purchase food, or they are meal programs that provide meals for kids in the settings where they are being cared for or they're learning during the day. So schools, childcare programs, after school programs, summer programs. So that's the distinction that we make. That's a great question. So what if Hunger Free Vermont does not purchase food and we don't distribute food and we don't run food programs, so what do we do? We provide customized free training and technical assistance to help schools, childcare providers, other community organizations like libraries and rec programs and set up and operate these federal meal programs for kids. And we also provide training and technical assistance for area agencies on aging, community action agencies and all the other direct service providing organizations, that food shelves and food pantries, in fact, that provide application assistance and support for people to access and use these federal nutrition programs. So we're the statewide organization that does that work. We do public education and outreach so that people know that these programs exist and how to access them. We collect and analyze and publish accurate food security data and information. We do coalition building and backbone support for coalitions. And these images here are just some of the examples of that. And we do governmental advocacy for administrative and legislative change. So, we work with state government agencies to improve their customer service for people and how the program how they operate the programs. And we come to you, the legislature, and say, you know, if you pass this law, we could make this program reach a lot more people or make a much bigger difference in combating hunger in Vermont. And in recent years, because of the pandemic and the twenty twenty three floods, we stepped into, along with the Vermont Food Bank, emergency food response coordination support. So we did a lot of work not to distribute food, but to track where communities were affected by the floods and needed hot needed prepared meal deliveries. And we helped to coordinate that at the request of state agencies. And we participate in the kind of state emergency management food piece about that and worked really hard to make sure that food is being thought of in state emergency response. Our funding mostly comes from private foundations and individuals and businesses. We receive a small percentage of our funding from government sources, almost a little bit from state funding. Most of it is federal and it's used for those outreach and technical assistance efforts that we that we make to get the word out about these programs to Vermonters. You're going to hear much more about the Vermont food security roadmap. But Hunger Free Vermont, again, along with the Vermont Food Bank, we're two of the founding members of that coalition. And all the projects and and policy work that we do is with underneath the umbrella of fulfilling on food security road map objectives. The fundamental point that we're here to make to you today is that the state of Vermont can make. We can collectively make policy choices that can ensure food security for everybody who lives here. That is actually possible for us to do. I'm going to skip over that. What I do wanna say, and especially to this committee, is that we're already on the road to creating food security for everyone in Vermont. And the state legislature and this committee in particular has done a lot of work in recent years to advance those goals. These are just some of the programs that state funding has supported or state policy changes have allowed to expand. So crop cash and farm share programs that let people use their Three Squares Vermont benefits at farmers markets and double their purchasing power there. Support for the Vermont Food Bank and the Vermonters Feeding Vermonters programs. Expanding state funding for Meals on Wheels, critical program for older folks and people with disabilities, creating and supporting the Land Access and Opportunity Board. We have to make sure we have enough farmers in the future to feed our people in Vermont. Universal school meals, of course, a huge success and reason why Vermont was one of the few states in the country that bucked the national trend of dramatic increases in childhood hunger following the end of pandemic supports. We were we did not see that increase in Vermont, and that is thanks to the child tax credit and universal school meals. Yes. Oh, sorry. You're supposed to say that. [President Nelson ]: Thank you. Been on the school board fourteen years. I'm a big proponent to the the meals program. And our schools delivered meals all through the pandemic, [Speaker 4 ]: which was huge. [President Nelson ]: School budgets. Our school is is in a high poverty area up there. Our long term weighted daily average is more than double our population. Most of those people would qualify for the federal meals program. The issue we're finding is now that there's free meals, people aren't going out to paperwork. You know, and I realized they're free meals, but they're costing the taxpayers in the district, and we could get those people to fill out the paperwork. And it and I and I know there's talk to the stigma and in the Lord, there there shouldn't be any. But how can we do that to help offset our budgets? I I just I it's a question. And, you know, that's been brought to me, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it because we know people aren't pulling out the paperwork now, which would get us a federal reimbursement for those meals. [Anur Horton ]: Yeah. So, actually, that that that's really not actually an issue any longer, in Vermont because our agency of education has, entered into a pilot, program that the feds make available to use Medicaid, child Medicaid data, so doctor dinosaur data, to directly certify, students, at those income levels. And so, the schools have income data for every individual student now available to them to use to certify them for school meals and also for education programs without families needing to fill out that paperwork. [Carrie Sailor ]: There's a [Anur Horton ]: tiny, tiny percentage of families who aren't covered by that. And so your school those schools are getting more federal reimbursement for their meals. You know, we're getting millions more federal reimbursement dollars now in the state than we have in the past. [President Nelson ]: I will look back into that in my own school. I sat at the meeting last night, but I'll look into it. Thank you. [Anur Horton ]: I'm happy to follow-up with you about [Speaker 4 ]: that too. [President Nelson ]: Thank you for that. [Carrie Sailor ]: Of course. [Anur Horton ]: Thank you for the question. [President Nelson ]: It gives me answers to other be you know, helps me answer it to the other constituents. Yeah. [Anur Horton ]: I mean, we have to have that data. You're absolutely right. It's critical. And, fortunately, we've got some much better ways to do that now that lift burden off of families and preserve their privacy and get the schools what they need. So I'm excited. [President Nelson ]: I'm really [Leila Morgan ]: Yeah. Great. Representative Burke. Just a quick question out of curiosity. Meals on meals. Who prepares all of those meals that get distributed? They're not it's not all done in one place. I mean, because it's Right. [President Nelson ]: How does that [Anur Horton ]: work? So I am not the best person to answer that question. The best person to answer that question is sitting right over there, Mary Hayden with the B4A, the area agencies on aging. We have five of them in the state, and they oversee, the meal programs for older Vermonters, which are Meals on Wheels and congregate meals. And so, different regions, so different area agencies on aging operate a bit differently for how those meals are prepared, but they are prepared by different entities. Some of them more local, some of them more regional and, and distributed that way. So it's a number of different Commercial institutions do. [Leila Morgan ]: It's not like at someone's home. [Anur Horton ]: Not someone's home, but, some senior centers, I, also do that work. Yeah. [Speaker 4 ]: Or can you hear me? [Anur Horton ]: I I I may be I may be, not being a hundred percent accurate about that. But, anyway, that's yeah. [Carrie Sailor ]: Okay. Thank you. Great. Sure. [Anur Horton ]: Okay. Yeah. The farm to early, farm to school and early childhood grants and local food purchasing incentive incentive that helps schools be able to buy more local food from local farms and, you know, recovery relief for flooded farms and businesses, returning Vermont two eleven, our statewide twenty four hour, again now, live assistance for people to help connect them with food and housing and other, resources, and the adding food security language into the, emergency response bill, Act one hundred and forty three, it was S310 that was passed last year. All of those things are, like really critical actions that this legislature has taken, and we thank you, for that. And those of you who are new, we thank you for the actions you will be taking in the current biennium, I am sure. And [Leila Morgan ]: Yeah. We got a few minutes. [Anur Horton ]: We have just a few minutes. I'm not gonna do that. I think we covered that. Oh, so, some of the food access priorities and, our, Hunger Free Vermont is the lead organization on, passing legislation to implement the SNAP restaurant meals program in Vermont. So, this is an option in the federal SNAP program, what we call Three Squares Vermont. And it allows certain, categories of folks to, use their SNAP benefits, at restaurants to get a prepared meal. Funding the Vermont Food Bank's request, which they just shared, we strongly support that. And also increasing funding for NOFA Vermont's crop cash and farm share programs. These are all programs that really support food security for some of our most vulnerable populations in Vermont while also supporting, Vermont businesses and Vermont farms. And I'll just say a little bit about Three Squares Vermont. And again, I would love to come have the opportunity to come back and talk to you more in more detail about the restaurant meals program, but I just think it's important to pause and take a look at what Three Squares Vermont SNAP, the SNAP program in Vermont does for our state and our people. Dollars thirteen million a month come into the Vermont economy through this program. And you can see here that the numbers. Right? Sixty five thousand people, thirty nine thousand households, nineteen thousand children, seventeen thousand older Vermonters are served every month by this program. At the same time, twice as many people are likely eligible for for Three Squares Vermont benefits as are currently enrolled. So we have work to do. And one way that we can really help, support that is making the ways that people can use their benefits as flexible as possible to increase participation and reduce stigma. So, the SNAP restaurant meals program is specifically for households who have low incomes and where everyone is over age sixty or unhoused or has disabilities. And if you just stop and think for just a minute about the unhousing crisis we are in right now, for example, and you think about someone who is, unhoused and has a Three Squares Vermont EBT card, and then you think about where are they going to store the food that they could get with that card at a grocery store if they're even within walking distance of a grocery store and where are they going to cook that food? And that is where if those folks could use their benefits to get a prepared meal at a participating restaurant, near where they are staying in a shelter or near where they are camping, that could make a profound, profound difference, for their health and their welfare and even for their for their life. People with disabilities and and older, folks also are people who often struggle to shop for and cook food for themselves. [Leila Morgan ]: The when you think restaurant, I wasn't immediately thinking, but now I'm now I'm wondering, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. If I were to go into the co ops right here in Montpelier or any co ops, there's the grocery section and then there's the, like, the hot bar, the salad bar. Yeah. And is is it the case that right now the salad bar, for example, is not an eligible item under with a stamp card, but it would be under this. Right? [Anur Horton ]: So hot prepared meals, hot prepared food at a retail grocery retailer, which a coop would be qualified as, as, are not eligible, and a grocery retailer can't also sign on as a restaurant. So no. Although the salad bar, if it's not hot, could be thank you, federal government. So so but this is just a quick sense of, like, we're talking about a significant number of people here in Vermont. But these are the kinds of restaurants, including food trucks, that would be eligible, who are that are not eligible to accept restricted Vermont benefits now, who that would be eligible. And I'll tell you that if we had had food trucks able to accept resource and remote benefits during the twenty twenty three floods, that would have been amazing. We were coordinating sending food trucks to communities that were just shut off, you know, like their grocery store was flooded out. They had no way to get food. And if folks could have used their resource amount benefits there, the food trucks would have benefited financially, and we could have gotten more food to more people in a more efficient and quick way. So, this is, like, I think, both an emergency preparedness effort that would be really valuable and a food an immediate food security effort for some of our most vulnerable folks. And I I really do wanna respect the committee's time, so I'm gonna stop there. You have my full, deck of slides, and I would be really happy to follow-up individually with anyone who has, further questions for me. And if there are any final questions right now, I'd be happy to take this as well. Any any questions? [Speaker 7 ]: With Snap or Xfinity Squares, are they are folks given a card still that operates kind of a debit card? Yes. Do those work on the regular credit card systems [President Nelson ]: that most grocery stores use? [Leila Morgan ]: Are they separate? [Anur Horton ]: There's, it depends. There's at least separate software that has to be loaded into those point of sale systems. And, but, yes, those point of sale systems can be used to process those. They're called electronic benefit cards or EBT cards. And often people will just refer to their three squared Vermont or their SNAP benefits as EBT. Okay. Yeah. Sure. [Speaker 7 ]: Great. [Leila Morgan ]: I know you have a few more slides that you weren't able to get to, and I made a couple of notes on things that we might wanna hear more about. So we'll I think we'll stop there, though. And thank you for coming in. Mary, I know you weren't on the agenda, but after we stop, if any of you want to chat, maybe you can get that question answered, and we can have you back other time too. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Be happy to. I'll leave my card. Alright. [Anur Horton ]: Thank you so much [President Nelson ]: for your time today. [Representative Brown ]: Thank you. [Speaker 4 ]: Thank you. Thank you. [Leila Morgan ]: Maybe it'll be
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