HOLYOKE — A renovation of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Holyoke that will include installation of new kitchen equipment is among nearly $5.9 million in projects supported by a state grant to improve access to fresh food across the state.
The Holyoke project was provided $500,000 and is one of several in the region that will improve food security, with the aim of the renovation to create a centralized food hub for youth.
Eileen D. Cavanaugh, the club’s president and CEO, said Thursday that the funding will be the catalyst for the start of the renovation and the creation of a centralized youth food hub that will relieve the fear and uncertainty of access to food for the most vulnerable youths in Holyoke.
“This funding will provide the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Holyoke with a space where youth can be greeted by a friendly face and given access to the food resources they need in order to grow,” Cavanaugh said.
Being in the heart of downtown, the club is surrounded by the highest need populations, Cavanaugh said, and is near to the majority of the homeless shelters, as well as being in a designated food desert.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools and agencies in the city, the club has assisted with providing more than 150,000 dinners and snacks to children, forming partnerships with schools, homeless shelters, farms and restaurants, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and regional food distributors.
Others receiving funding from the state include Riquezas del Campo, the immigrant-led, worker-owned cooperative farm at the Northampton-Hatfield town line. The cooperative, at the end of its second season, is getting a $138,508 grant to expand and improve farm production so more fresh food can be supplied to low-wage and immigrant workers.
The money will go toward infrastructure improvements at the farm, such as potable water access, a mobile wash station and caterpillar tunnels, as well as the purchase of a trailer, tractor and mobile cold storage unit.
An additional $1,268 will allow Riquezas del Campo to get equipment to process payments from individuals with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
Another large grant, for $318,328, went to the Sunderland Farm Collaborative so it can buy two refrigerated vehicles, expand its storage space, construct a new warehouse and get refrigeration equipment.
ServiceNet Inc. in Hatfield is receiving $88,851 for capital investments, improvements to an online ordering system, and for increasing cold storage and refrigerated trucking capacity for highly demanded online orders.
Finally, $12,137 will allow Hartsbrook School’s farm and Community Supported Agriculture to buy farm equipment for producing food on the Hadley campus that will be distributed to food banks and other organizations, and $1,069 will go to the Hilltown Mobile Market in Chesterfield so that it can acquire SNAP processing equipment.
The money is part of the fourth round of grants from the $36 million Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program, created following recommendations from Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 Command Center’s Food Security Task Force.
“As part of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to build on our efforts to secure a resilient, diverse local food supply chain so Massachusetts residents maintain access to fresh, healthy food,” Baker said in a statement.