May26, 2020

Jenny Sanchez:
Hi, I’m Jenny Sanchez, with “Sullivan 180 Presents… Take Five!” Our guests today are on the front lines of the community response. I have Colleen Monaghan from Cornell Cooperative Extension Sullivan County, and Mark McLewin from the Catskills Food Hub joining us today. How are you both doing?

Mark McLewin:
Great. Thank you.

Colleen Monaghan:
Thank you for having us.

Jenny Sanchez:
Could you please introduce yourselves and share what you do at your respective organizations?

Mark McLewin:
Sure. So I’m Mark McLewin. I am the vice president of the Sullivan Catskills Food Hub. It is an organization created to get ‘local products’ distributed to ‘people locally’. So we like to get farm fresh things that are created by our neighbors that are either ‘made’ or ‘grown’ or ‘raised’, in the case of animals….get them consolidated to our hub in Liberty and then redistributed out to the public. And that’s been a huge, a huge need for that lately because of the COVID virus. People drive up, they pop their trunks. They’ve pre-ordered food. We put the food in the trunk and off they go, having never had to touch a grocery store.

Jenny Sanchez:
Wow, that’s great.

Colleen Monaghan:
And I’m Colleen Monaghan, the executive director at Cornell Cooperative Extension Sullivan County and ex- officio board member of the Catskills Food Hub. We’ve been working for the last several years in supporting local farmers in preparing to ‘scale up’ and be able to deliver food to the Food Hub, to restaurants, retail buyers, and also most recently our, the ‘food box distribution program’.

Jenny Sanchez:
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, how has the daily operation of your organizations changed?

Mark McLewin:
Yes: what happened when we first envisioned the Food Hub, it was more on the commercial level: more getting out to restaurants and doing it on the wholesale level. We did start at the end of last year doing a bit of a retail operation because people were asking for it. As soon as the virus took off on us, and we all started sheltering, it became more critical that the retail function of the Food Hub be exaggerated and be expanded. And because we were set up in one direction, the Cornell Cooperative Extension jumped in and really helped to propel us in the direction we’re going in now.

Colleen Monaghan:
I would, I would agree with everything Mark says, and we’re lucky at Extension to have an ‘agricultural and food systems’ team of experts in various aspects of aggrigation distribution, agricultural farm safety, wholesale readiness, and retail. So it’s really been a mutually beneficial relationship to be able to bring our team in to partner with the Food Hub, to be able to meet the increased demand and be able to provide safe spaces for folks to pick up local products.

Jenny Sanchez:
What are some of the challenges you have faced during this time of the pandemic?

Mark McLewin:
Well, the Food Hub, because it was originally scaled for the wholesale level, it would have been ‘larger quantities going out to fewer people’. And of course, retail, we’re looking at more people, smaller quantities. So we’ve revamped all the shelving, revamped the systems. Of course during the virus, we have to maintain cleanliness levels. So we would have been, quite frankly, in trouble without Cornell and without their staffing, because it’s really labor intensive. And there’s also the fact that we’re dealing with an incredibly localized market. So maybe we have 20 yogurts ordered and the producer can only produce 19. You know, of course I’m using low numbers here just for an example, but because it is such a localized market we would then have to contact our customer and say, “Hey, you know what? Our farmer just couldn’t produce that much”.

Jenny Sanchez:
Do you have any specific positive experiences that have come out of this that you would like to share?

Mark McLewin:
Yes! I’m just so thrilled that we could sit down and have some very, very quick conversations with Cornell and said, “Hey, you know what? We have all this common ground let’s work together and make this happen!”. And together we’ve been very strong. And I think in the end, it’s going to be a wonderful outcome that would not have been able to achieve if we were separate.

Colleen Monaghan:
For myself, as an ex officio board member, who’s sort of been working with the board to nurture this project for about four or five years. We now have a robust group of committed volunteers who are trained. They know what they’re doing. They show up when they say they’re going to show up with a smile on their face. And then Thursdays, when we do the retail pickup in Liberty at the Food Hub, people are just so very thankful. They’re glad to be able to support local agriculture. There’s been some interruptions in the supply chain, which we’ve read about in the newspaper and seen on the media, and the Food Hub facility and the board and the team of people that have been working together in there have been able to make a difference for Sullivan County and regional farmers. We received a few notes in house at the Food Hub that this operation, (being that the restaurants closed) were a few of the producer’s only source of income. So that’s really meaningful to be able to throw a lifeline or at least be a ‘stop gap’ when businesses shut down unexpectedly. And then all of a sudden- there no place for product to go. Which is exactly what the purpose of the Food Hub is.

Jenny Sanchez:
So what can the community do to aid your efforts?

Colleen Monaghan:
There’s a couple things. One: we do know that there is a ‘food security issue’ in Sullivan County, even before the COVID crisis hit. The data, suggested that one in five young people are in a family who are dependent on SNAP benefits for their next meal. So there are food distribution efforts that are happening, and some of that is flowing through the Food Hub. The recommendation for folks who might be in need is to contact the Sullivan County Emergency Community Assistance Hotline. That’s a centralized place that takes in different calls and requests for assistance. And then they call out for help to entities like the Catskills Food Hub, or S.A.L.T., or the Sullivan Fresh Markets. And folks can reach out to that hotline at (845) 807-0925. And if there are folks on the other end of the spectrum who are hoping to support some food security efforts or the Food Hub’s general operations, they can visit the Catskills Food Hub website, which is www.catskillsfoodhub.org or they can give us a ring at (845) 295-7800.

Jenny Sanchez:
Is there anything else you would like to add?

Mark McLewin:
It’s really great to see all the people who want to take part in helping our community and keeping our community strong, and just in supporting each other. And I think that’s something we need to take away with here.

Jenny Sanchez:
I echo Mark and I thank you, Sullivan 180, for the opportunity to tell a little piece of the story of the Catskills Food Hub.

Jenny Sanchez:
Well, thank you both for being here and for letting us know what you’re doing to help Sullivan County!