Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Alright. So welcome back to the Vermont Food Bank and yeah. Good. Alright. So why don't we go ahead?

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Let's start at the beginning here. I'd really like to start in the middle. I guess we can introduce ourselves. Yeah.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Good afternoon, committee. I'm John Sales. I'm CEO of Vermont Food Bank and live in Montpelier.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: And I'm Carrie Stahler, and I do government and public affairs work at Vermont Food Bank, and I live in Linden.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: I'm gonna let Carrie kick us off.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah. And so while this is about our budget request, whoops, hang on, having some major technical jab. There we go. One of the things that we like to do as part of the Food Security Coalition here in Vermont is remind legislators why you asked us to draft that document and why we continue to use that document as a guiding light in the work that we do. And it's because we know the state of Vermont can make policy choices to ensure food security for everyone who lives here. And this relates to the asks that'll be in front of you from Vermont Food Bank, because we know that the government needs to support the charitable food system now to improve food security for everyone, while together we all work toward a more permanent, dignified and sustainable set of food security solutions for the whole state. And that impacts on food security are some of the longest lasting impacts after disasters and disruptions, which I know this committee talks about and thinks about a lot as those relate directly to farmers. This is our total budget request for the state, dollars 5,000,000 in fiscal year 'twenty seven. 2,000,000 of that directly relates to this committee for feeding Vermonters. The other 3,000,000 are 2,000,000 to support our network partner organizations with purchase and distribution of food, and $1,000,000 in base funding for Ready Response, which directly relates to disasters and emergencies. This 2,000,000 is what we'll be focusing on today, the Virmatra's feeding Virmatra's grant portion. And then I guess maybe I'll hand it over to you to do a little background on the food bank and just kind of level set and remind everyone who we are and what we do.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Sure. And most of you have heard this before, so stop me with any questions, but I'll probably go quickly through this. So Vermont's food bank's mission is to gather and share quality food and nurture partnerships so that no one in Vermont will go hungry. We are in the midst of strategic planning. We're keeping our mission because it works and it says what we do. And we think it says it distinctly. Last year we distributed 14,500,000 pounds of food throughout the state of Vermont and we expect to distribute about that same amount of food this year. We're the only statewide food bank in Vermont serving about 300 plus partners. We'll talk about that a little bit more in all 14 counties of the state. We have three distribution centers in Barrie, Rutland and Brattleboro. Barrie serves like Orange County and the whole Northern part of the state. Rutland serves Rutland County, Addison County and Brattleboro serves the rest. And there's some differences there, but we find that's a good spread for us to be able to make sure we're balancing being present on the ground. We can often deliver more food in that area right around our distribution center. So it's important to us to be distributed throughout the state. So impact, as I said, more than 14,000,000 pounds of food distributed, more than over 200 farms that we work with over any given year, in a number of different ways. And then two seventeen network partners. So those are the food shelves and meal sites in your communities that serve people directly. We also partner with schools and hospitals, with SASH sites, and some other organizations. So the total number of partners is over 300 across the state. And each month, we serve around 70,000 people in Vermont. And that's through direct distribution, the food bank does, and through all of our partner organizations throughout the state. We're everywhere. So you can see the blue dots are our partners, network partners, food shelves, meal sites, hospitals, schools. The yellow dots are the urban areas where there's multiple partners underneath those.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: There were just too many and they had to turn into one dot.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: That's right. But we are, through partnership, distributed pretty evenly throughout the state, even places like Essex County where there aren't a lot of people, we still have partners.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yes. So there's a place in Bellows Falls called Our Place and they have a food and they distribute food. And I guess I always assumed that they were part of the food bank, but it looks like they're not.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: I don't know. I believe You

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: can our place go to a different place for that.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Our place, if it's not now, it certainly used to be a network partner with bank and why there wouldn't be a dot there. I don't know.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Okay, so maybe it's just the dot is missing.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: It could be the dot is missing or two.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: But it's not maybe there was a different food system, and

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: I wanted to understand that. So there are partners who not few Yeah. There are partners who are not part of our network. There are food access points who are not part of our network. Okay. And there are often food access points that are engaged with one of our network partners as a satellite site, and so we may not directly list those. There's a lot of that.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: I've visited our place, and I know that they been a network partner. Right.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And Nelson yeah. So Thank you.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Is the food shelf back opened up in Holland?

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yes. It is.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: It is. Yep. It's it's way at the so this again Before we get too into the map

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And is it associated with Newport or?

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: No, no, it's independent. It's independent.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: This is a little old. The map is a little old. Directly from our campus. It's representing. Exploring.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yes. Live service all

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the time. I don't think you

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: all wanna know though, that's the best. All right, let's move to the next slide. It's not perfect. Noted that the map should be extremely accurate. I will correct that for my next presentation.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, just the previous slide estimated 70,000 per month. It's like more than 10% of the population.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, and that's a duplicated number. So there could be the same people going a couple of times a month. I see. Is it over 10% of Vermonters? Yes, but we do serve over 10% of Vermonters in aggregate over the year individuals.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: This

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: also doesn't differentiate if someone goes to a veggie van goat but also uses a food shelf. May be considered. It's a little hard to get into the super detailed, super details.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: That's one of the challenges we have is because of the way we serve people, getting very accurate data on who gets served where and when is really challenging because we like to be low barrier. So yeah, the different kinds of food we have available. So we run two federal food programs, the commodity supplemental food program, CSFP, which is a box of staples that go to people 60 who are income eligible. We do about 1,500 of those boxes a month and those get distributed throughout the state. And then donated foods, which you'll see is about 60% of the food we distribute. And then the balance about a quarter is purchased foods. And that's really the number, as you'll see, that's been going up over the last several years. Here, donated food, about 60% of what we distribute. And it comes from all kinds of places, local, regional, grocers and retailers. Pick up, they take stuff off the shelves at grocery stores. We are our partners with local food shelves. We'll go there and pick it up, including produce and meat. The meat gets frozen before it gets donated. And then some of this comes to our distribution centers and gets sorted and then redistributed. And then wholesale donations, any manufacturer distributor of any size in Vermont is a donor to the Vermont Food Bank, pretty much. Community food drives, we don't engage with those too much. We usually, it's a small amount. It just adds cost for the food bank to roll a truck for 100 or 200 or 500 pounds of food. We direct those to the local partner. So if a community is doing a food drive and call us, we say, hey, you should talk to this local partner and they'll help coordinate and all the food can stay right in the community. And then there's also donated food through national channels. We're part of a national network called Feeding America, which is about 200 food banks across the country. And there are relationships with all of the big national food manufacturers and distributors. And so we can actually get food donated from Tyson or the big vegetable growers or Cargill. And that they have a system for us to be able to bid on and get loads coming in. We share a lot of that with other food banks in New England, because we're so small compared to a Los Angeles food bank or Dallas or Chicago. So if we can get a truckload of something and we don't need the whole truckload of that product, we'll share it with Rhode Island or Western Mass or New Hampshire food pack. USDA, about right now about 20% of the foods we distribute. I didn't talk about the second USDA program, which is TFAP. It's the commodity, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, TFAP. Started out many, many decades ago as government cheese. Now it's a USDA program where Congress appropriates money. USDA actually goes out and purchases food like a grocery store, has food processed into shelf stable canned, dry foods, grocery products. We also get frozen food through TFAP, great quality food and very stable source. Generally, the appropriation goes up and down over the years.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: You should be getting cheese right now by the semi load because of the price bill.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah. Well, we'll we'll see what happens. Sometimes if they that's what happened, you know, years ago.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: So It would help tight it would help empty the cheese caves

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: And then get the market stable. After production sites stabilize, then it would stabilize and

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Needs to happen. I think

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: what you're naming is an important piece of that, which is that all of these decisions are made by the USDA, And it is often meant for market stability and food banks are simply a way to move that food into communities. And it is often unpredictable.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Give me that job down there, and I'll feed you all better. And I'll take care of the farmers same time.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: I would like to have you in that job down there.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah, same.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So I talked about purchase food and this is our slide. This is food banks across the country. Then if you go back even before 2018, you'd probably see, if you go back to about 2008, started a food bank in 2009. You would see a steady progression increase in purchase food As the need continues to rise and it's more difficult to find new sources of donated food, food banks have more and more been purchasing food.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: And when he said this is national, he meant this is a national trend. This is our data.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: This is our data. Is not national.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. You'd see that.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: It's national data. Representative Bos-Lun? So when you say purchase food, does that just mean like you literally like go to a grocery store and purchase it? Are you able to do like large number, reduced cost?

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: We are purchasing by the truckload from wholesalers. And we have a team whose only job, they're the food resource team. They just purchase food, both from our local farmers and all over the country.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Brian? I remember in a past resignation, you said you bought a lot

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: of food from Quebec and Ontario.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Our produce, yeah there's a distributor or a grower up there called Western Harvest. And we buy, well most of our produce that we purchase comes from Western Harvest. Has that changed with tariffs at all? Because fortunately so far the tariffs haven't applied to products that are part of the free trade agreement and that includes produce. So we have seen tariff impacts for some other things that we buy like racking and forklifts that often comes from Canada.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Or the cans that the The food comes aluminum tariff has increased can costs, which increases food costs.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: That that was their entire business guidance. I've never been to it, but I need to go. It's what I hear from people who

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: have been there, it's absolutely phenomenal. And,

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: know, and you talk about local food, It's 50 miles from my house. It's closer to that just, you know, from Swanton. It's just

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. It's

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: just the other side of May Valley.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: They're a

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: great partner. In fact, when you go on a tour a number of years ago, of our team went on a tour and they came and flew them around in the helicopter to show them all their growing. Yeah, they're big, big organization.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: It feels as flat as this floor.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: And then there's Vermont grown food, which is what we talk about a lot in here. We're very proud to be able to bring Vermont grown food to the people that we serve all over the state. And you can see here, there's been a very large increase. Part of that during COVID when there was a lot of funding available. And our growers here in Vermont were very stressed because of course the food supply chains were all interrupted. We really ramped up purchases of local foods and have been able to stay there. You can see the decrease in '25 is when we had, I think in fiscal year 'twenty four for the state, I think we had $3,000,000 And appropriation from the then the fiscal year 'twenty five was $1,500,000 So it was that kind of the funding from the state fell off and that's what we were, that's what was supporting a lot of those local purchases.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: 6%.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: And this year we do have there, the legislature appropriated half $1,000,000 in FY twenty six for Vermonters feeding Vermonters. And there's around $400,000 still in the budget adjustment to add to that. So we're very grateful for

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's moving its way through. Moving its

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: way through. It's in the Senate now.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Well, yeah, it sounds like conference committee is coming up soon.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: All right.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: We're getting close. I know. So close. So I guess I'll take over here. And this is the specifics of the request for the $2,000,000 for Vermonters Feeding Vermonters. So I'm sure this committee remembers, but I will remind you, last year you passed the Vermonters Feeding Vermonters Act, which became act 34 of 2025. And so that program is now a real partnership with the Vermont Agency of Ag Food and Markets, which has been a really positive improvement and has really helped both the food bank and the agency meet very similar goals around supporting farms. What we were able to do this year with the funding was buy directly from farms. So we do larger scale purchasing from some of our larger farms in Vermont, where they can deliver by the pallet load or scales that require a warehouse dock to deliver. And then there's a separate portion of the program that provides grants to our local partners so they can work with their own local farms to purchase smaller quantities that fits in the back of your pickup truck or your Subaru and can go to a food shelf and be handled maybe more frequently. It may be CSAs, or it may be a few times a summer or fall during the harvest season when that food is getting picked up from the farm or delivered to our partners with those grant dollars. That's really what helps us meet that number that John shared earlier, those two twenty farms. The Food Bank can work with only so many large farms because as you all know, that's not the scale of farming in Vermont. Those grant dollars really help move dollars out into those small farms. Sometimes they're new farms, sometimes they're well established operations, that's where the variety really happens. And then there is a separate part of the program that is culturally relevant food that we work with a few growers and match them with some of our partners who work with specific populations. I remember having Hilary Martin in here to speak with you, and she was talking about specific kinds of melons that they grow for populations in the Burlington area and that they have staff who really know what those folks want and how to grow that food, and it is a specialty that they've developed over the years. And we really try and match that with our partners.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: seem to recall that the governor didn't put any money in for

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: his budget. There is no money in the governor's budget. We have had a great working relationship with ag food and markets, but money did not wind up in the governor's budget when that budget was released. So our hope is that the support of this committee and the support of the legislature will help us get this money back into the budget.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: We did have that conversation with, met with Sarah Clark and we talked to the folks at Ag with Abby and others there to make sure while they were building their budget that they knew about this opportunity.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: And then once that food is all purchased, we'll just go quickly through where the food goes. So John talked a little bit about the alphabet soup of some of the names of our programs, but you can see all of these intersecting arrows. There's all sorts of food going out in all sorts of ways, and that is really what happens with Vermattress Feeding Vermattress Food two. Much of it goes to our network partners, some of it goes through our veggie van go, some of it goes to those sash produce drops, some of it is going out through school pantries, which this is still called backpack program. We have recently updated that name to just call it local school programs. And really that produce is working its way into lots and lots of communities around the state through a whole variety of our distribution channels. And that's really the magic of how Vermattress Feeding Vermattress works is because it utilizes existing channels that we operate through all the time. And we know who has capacity for refrigeration and who is just gonna need us to drop it off and have a pickup right at the same time. So there's a lot of existing efficiencies in that process.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Sorry. I'm just reading the caption on the bottom of your screen. And one of the requests that we've had is for pretty darn close to $5,000,000 for navigators to help fill out applications for through Squares assistance. So I'm wondering if you can tell me what do you guys do and what is your capacity to help with that? Yeah, that's

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: a great question. Thank you for that. That benefit assistor request, the food bank is included within that request. Our program at the food bank for Three Squares Vermont is a team of three full time staff and part of one person's management position. We operate a phone line, we operate a text line, and we operate an email channel for people to get in touch with our team. That team does SNAP assistance, and they also help do customer service for our CSFP program. The part we would ask for support as part of that benefit assistor piece is that SNAP and Medicaid combo. Our team primarily does SNAP. They are the only team that operates statewide. So a lot of benefit assistors are located within cap agencies or local organizations who are seeing people face to face or meeting people.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: The Agencies on Aging.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yes, the Agencies on Aging. There's a whole bunch of those more localized organizations. Our team can be reached statewide through the channels that I mentioned and have really become highly skilled in very difficult situations. So people who have worked through the SNAP process and continue to hit barriers that are complicated, can't get their login to work, they can't get someone to sign this one form, what do we do? Or is there a form that I can use? Here's my specific situation. And really often end up working in-depth with people for a lot of time. We work through those pieces.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: We're also not intending to become educated and become experts in Medicaid also. Know this is both. We want

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: to focus

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: on SNAP assistance, which we are expert in, and we will refer people to others who do Medicaid.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, and so the piece of that benefit assisters is really because there was a change in federal statute. So the federal change in HR1, it used to be that you were required to have a 25% match. Now you need a 50% match. And without that kind of match money, Vermont Food Bank and all of these other organizations who do this work will have to reduce capacity instead of increase it, which is what we all actually need in order to help keep people on these programs and keep the federal dollars that come into Vermont flowing into our state. And so it's a chicken or the egg. But at the same time, I think to speak for our colleagues at Vermont Food Bank, the critical role that they're filling is this highly specialized deep knowledge in the SNAP application process and all of the variety of ways that people can run into challenges through that, which is unfortunately kind of vast. I'm just going to breeze through these other two sections of our request because I understand them, but you don't need to deeply understand them. The $2,000,000 to support our network is really one time funding that we're looking for and will help purchase shelf stable food and other food, some of that produce that we're talking about from Canada that goes into those food shelves and meal sites at no cost to them. One of the things that we are consistently asked for by our partners is more free food. And there is not a way to, as John said, get more donated food into this system. And so we are having to find ways to purchase food to keep those shelves stocked. Many of our partners work on very limited budgets, as many of you already know. So this is one way that we can take state dollars and help wrap around that whole network and fill those shelves. And then $1,000,000 for Ready Response. This is something we've been working with government operations on. This is really related to the multiple flood disasters Vermont has had and a recognition that we do not have a good system in our state to respond to food needs after a disaster. And our hope is that with some funding, will be able to work together with remote emergency management and create some better systems and plans and practice those like they do with a lot of other disaster response and to become part of that system.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: And we are in some ways already part of that system. And we do coordinate when there is the disaster VEM calls us, we're written into the state emergency operations plan. But we don't have the resources to be able to have, for instance, food staged because we know that disasters are coming. But we can't have food and water staged in our distribution centers just waiting for that because that needs to turn over periodically. And it's something that needs consistent funding to really have a plan that we can implement over and over again.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I believe that a year ago for the FY '26 budget, the House included some funding for the program. Did that not make it through? Not make through. So this is not a continuation of existing.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: This is not. No, and it really is the same hope to formalize that process.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Burtt and Burtt, I'm just curious if, you know, I'm assuming it's

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: catastrophe

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: at some point, some sort of needed a lot of food quickly

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: to be distributed.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: You don't really have to soak food ahead of time, right, without spoiling and the cost and whatnot. Is there any Do you have a plan in place for how you would acquire that food? We do,

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: we have disaster plans. So what happens is, a good example is the last flood when Barry flooded, they turned the Barry Auditorium into an emergency center and a shelter. And within that first day, because we're right up on the hill, we had a call from them saying, we've got 300 people here. We don't have any water and we don't have any food. Do you have anything you can bring down? And we often don't have the quantities of water and the kinds of food you need. You need things that doesn't need to be cooked, ready to eat foods. And so first of all, having those staged would allow us to meet that kind of immediate need. And it takes us, it's gonna be at a minimum three or four days to order something and get it in. There is a national disaster system in the Feeding America network. And so we can get disaster boxes very quickly, usually within three or four days from Feeding America. But that's

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: just to our warehouse, And then to get those out to communities as well.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: And it's limited in the quantities we can get. We can get maybe two truckloads of that. So without getting into the details, we've had lots of conversations with VEM and there's a certain window where we think the food bank can really play a strong role. But having the warehouse space and the products sourced and capacity to make sure we have that 10% extra in trucks and drivers so that when that hits, we can respond and not be completely overwhelmed.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: And not disrupt the already urgent need that we're filling, because what we're doing is everyday emergencies all the time. Then when you add on a natural disaster or other types of emergencies, we still have to keep rolling in the same way in order to not make everything worse, right? So it really is this additive capacity that is key.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Well, pain in mind is someone like Champlain Orchards or other farms who have a lot of storage capacity, if you just had somebody you would contact in an emergency situation, like can we

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: get 2,000 bushels of apples to distribute? Absolutely, yeah. And we do that also. We're definitely looking in the local area to find what resources are available.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And then O'Brien. Yeah, just

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: to clarify, so you don't really stockpile any food for a disaster.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: We have maybe a couple of pallets, which is enough for one little town if something happened, the water was out or they lost electricity.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: It's the ice storm scale.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. So I mean, when we went to your warehouse, that food we saw completely gone in a month and it's been replenished from dog food to alligator, it's all gone.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, the alligator's gone.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah, the alligator?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We didn't USDA. We did get some USDA Yeah.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Our warehouse in Barrie turns over between, I think it's about nine times a year. So it's a little more than that. But that food really does all move.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So I always call it a distribution center and not a warehouse, because nothing really stays chill. Well, it's hard to stop by a food for a disaster, because

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: unless it's all aluminium that has

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a shelf life.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Well, and part of the plan is we we'd have to recognize the shelf life and we can just take whatever is getting close to code and distribute it through the network, through the food shelves and meal sites, and then we'll replenish that. So it would always be. This

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: is a slide that I actually pulled for House Human Services, but I thought this committee may wanna also see this. This is from Public Assets Institute's State of Working Vermont, which is a report that was just released. And I thought it was interesting in light of the 70,000 number that we shared with you earlier about how many people we serve sort of on average per month. These are numbers from 2024 about Vermonters living below the poverty level, not above. And these poverty numbers are slightly outdated. The numbers are a little bit higher now. But I was actually having done this work for years and come into the State House for years, really shocked to see 56,000 Vermonters are living below the poverty level. So that 70,000 number doesn't sound too surprising when you see a number like this. And then the other piece of that report that I found interesting that I think is really telling for state at large, and I know this committee has heard that a lot of farmers fit into these categories too, are people who are not able to meet their basic needs on the income that they have. And this is a little confusing to look at. The Xs are actually the part of the scale where people are unable to meet their basic needs. So just below fifty percent of single households, almost seventy percent of single adults with two children, not able to meet their basic needs. A few weeks ago, when we were here for Three Squares Day, I know we had a few farmers here. And all the farmers who came with us that day, save maybe one, all also used Three Squares and fit into these categories of not being able to meet their basic needs. Karen,

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: on those basic needs chart, is that just food or is that housing as well?

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: It's all the basic needs, and I think it's the same basic needs calculation that the joint fiscal office uses to do their basic needs budget every few years.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's everything. Everything. Food, housing,

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: health care, child care, transportation.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Fortunately, there are a lot of basic needs. So again, the total budget that we're hoping this committee will be able to draft into your budget letter is $2,000,000 of our total $5,000,000 request. And that is specifically to support Vermont Tourette's feeding Vermonters. But as you know, supporting farmers by purchasing food at market cost is also supporting farmers and meeting their basic needs. I think that's really one of the win wins of this program. And I think that is it. And me and John and Sarah were around and we are happy to answer questions if you have any more. And then if there are any additional questions, John and I are happy to stay and answer those.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Bos-Lun.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: So I guess we're going to be putting together a budget letter that says, oh, this is our wish list of what we hope the appropriations will fund. So are you saying we should only put Vermonters fitting Vermonters on there because somebody else is going to take care of asking for those other things? I think that's

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: a great question. And I would return that question to your committee chair, because I think each year committees have dealt with that a little bit differently. I will say that if you're looking specifically at the budget areas that are related to agriculture, the portion that we are asking for that fits into the ag agency budget is the $2,000,000 I would like your support for everything we walk in here with, of course. And I think it's up to you and the other committee chairs, Chair Durfee, how you all decide to do those budget letters and whether you want to

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Just as a follow-up, have you been able to testify in I think I heard you mention human services a moment ago. Have you been able to testify in other policy committees?

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yes, we were in human services this morning and government operations last week, the week before.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: My understanding is government operations has made a commitment to put the ask in their budget memo. Or the emergency. Right, and I think they may have done it for everything.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Maybe you've done it for everything. Haven't seen that.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: The more the merrier when it comes to appropriations.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Fair enough. And I don't know whether the appropriations committee has also made time for budget requests.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: They are doing their budget public hearings. They did one last week and there's another one this week. And we have had John was in last week, but there are several of our partners and our community members who have who plan to come and give testimony during that. Hopefully, they will they will feel well educated.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Do they ask questions we asked earlier in the year, like your efficiency rating or do you give it to them so they realize?

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: No. They they ask and we share. Yes. Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: That's really important, I think, that they understand how efficient some of our NGOs operate in the state, you know, we heard from the conservation districts how efficient they are, efficient you folks are. It's the Vermont way. Well, and it just shows prudent use of our colleagues.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You. Good. Well, we can wrap it up, think, then. Thank you very much for joining.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, thank you so much for trying all the good questions.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Just while we've got a couple of minutes here for the committee, think that we sent around either Patricia or I sent just a reference copy of the letter that we wrote a year ago to the immigration committee. And my expectation is that we can follow the same format. So if you wanna just take another look at that so that you can Right now? Well, it doesn't need to be right now. We have to be downstairs in a couple of minutes. Take a glance at that. And then I think the language in there was somewhat my language. And they'll they'll be different won't won't be the same necessarily the same letter, some the same request, but some of them are similar. So if there's something that you particularly feel strongly about and would like to elaborate on why you think this funding should go here, we've heard new testimony this year, obviously. And I welcome anyone's participation in putting that life together. If there's a focus that you see isn't there, let me know.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: It's sent in our It should

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: have been sent to everyone's email either yesterday or this morning. Yeah. Is it annotated with what actually ended up in the final budget? No. This is just the letter that we sent out to you. There is also separately, and this is wholly related to food. So pursuant to the conversation we had yesterday about a list, there was already a list Jed Claro had sent to the committee a week or so ago. And so I recirculated that to everybody. Not all the budget requests we received are just food security related. But it's a starting point anyway. And we're in the meantime, as she's able to find time, Tricia's going to try and build out the list to include all the requests that we've received. And I just publicly thank Jake, because it's very thorough and covers what we had been struggling to put together on our own past few years. So there is a time still left tomorrow that is PPD. Barring anything with a higher priority, we will use that time to talk about what we might have in the letter. If you have an opportunity between now and then to look it, to look at last year's again and wanna think about, you might wanna contribute to it, please feel free to do that. And again, it's last year's letter. It's not this year's letter. But format wise, I think it's helpful. Think about how structured. Other questions? All right, we What's the deadline? Friday, nominally. Yep. I will try to do that. Coming right up. I appreciate my my part. We I know we covered a lot today. Just sort of thinking Good.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: No. It's good. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The where where we are going in the next few days, the the I don't there have been any other scheduled testimony on on paraquat? Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Can you hear some number? It's, like,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: from This is. Okay. Yes. So so I'm sorry. We don't have anything scheduled, but we have reached out to we've heard anybody from Farm Bureau that they may have some people who'd like to testify. So wanna try and schedule that. Chair, if

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: you're you're interested on bear Quad, I could get this agenda. Government liaison officer would come in if you're interested.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: If they would like to, yeah, that would be would be happy to. We're just to remind everybody that we've got next the rest of this week, next week, and then the week after. Yeah. So we're trying to move ahead with each of the bills. And that's also a short form bill. So we don't have language in front of us yet.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: When the miscellaneous item bill that needs be

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So everything has to be in by that, like, the Friday after crossover. That's the deadline for all those.

[Carrie Stahler (Government & Public Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Did you say miscellaneous item had had

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: to be done tomorrow to go to the senate?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. So so in order to meet cross every day. No. The the miscellaneous so the municipal regulation of ag, in order to stay on schedule, we should probably move something out We should probably agree to something by the end of the week, and we might have a little flexibility there. Yeah. I can do another thing. We can do other committees to have a drive by opportunity for it. Yeah. I would. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes. We have a visitor. Yes. You do. Just visiting. Visiting. Okay. That's done. Done.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: To Sam.