Martha's Table: Volunteers at Martha's Table prepare food for the homeless.
This article was originally published in the American Observer.Yecenia Alfaro and Mimi Brown also contributed to this report.
Martha’s Table, a Washington-based organization that provides food for the homeless, is using fresh, local and organically grown fruits and vegetables to make meals healthier.
“Some people ask the question, why are we doing this? And the simple answer is nutrition and the fight against obesity,” said Dominick Musso, director of facilities and food programs. “We took a look at ourselves and said, can we do better? And the answer is, you can do better.”
The non-profit organization serves from 1,200 to 1,500 meals every day — enough to feed 10 percent of homeless people in the metropolitan area. It provides food to the homeless and needy in various ways. It offers meals to children and families enrolled in its programs, provides emergency food baskets to families in need, delivers food to senior homes, and serves food from its mobile soup kitchen to people on the street.
The organization’s nutrition initiative aims to incorporate as much fresh, local and organic food within these food programs as possible, said Musso. “Not only is it healthier, it’s more humane,” he said. “We are giving people variety, and I think it’s really important to do that.”
The organizations’s mobile soup kitchen, the McKenna Wagon, delivers meals to people on the street seven days a week, 365 days a year. Volunteers stop at different locations in the city and serve homemade soup, sandwiches, desserts, fresh fruit and refreshments. Musso said that by the end of 2010, Martha’s Table hopes to dramatically increase the amount of organic food the McKenna Wagon serves.
Two motivations prompted the initiative a year ago, according to Musso: to meet a new government emphasis on serving fresh, local and organic food to children, and to provide adults living on the street with a similar quality of food.
“Where the children are concerned, we’ve always been under a government mandate in terms of what to feed them,” said Musso. “It’s a different story with the food that we’re feeding to the people who are on the street because there are no guidelines. I think we have realized in the past year that we can actually do better and we can work harder to meet the government’s initiative to serve healthier food and to fight obesity.”
Martha’s Table is able to provide local, fresh and organic food options by forming alliances with farms, farmers’ markets and donors Musso said. Many local farmers markets, including the Georgetown and 14th and U markets, allow Martha’s Table volunteers to take the unsold, leftover produce, free-of-charge.
Martha’s Table has been operating for the past 30 years. In addition to its food programs, it offers educational services and clothing for the homeless and people in need. In November it will be hosting an event to help the homeless, called “Walk with Martha’s Table.” This event will take place on the National Mall on Nov. 20, 2010 from 9 a.m to 11 a.m.