Bangor committee hears on state hunger roadmap and local food resources

[6:13] Public commenter: When they're in sports too, yeah, my son plays, hey Rossler, he's been on like three different baseball teams this year. Wow, so wow, three, yeah, middle school, then this like little league juniors team, and then he does this travel team, so part of it through the box and rec or like Yes. We live in Orono. Oh, okay. Well, we're about there. The little league is, Orono doesn't have a juniors team, so all the kids in Orono who want to play at that little league level, they play in Glenburn. Oh. But it's similar, you know, similarly very local based. That's interesting, Glenburn. Yeah, they have, I think because you probably just have fewer kids at that age, right, and so Yeah, there's room for them, there's room for more, whereas Bangor, I bet that idea when I watched [7:17] Susan Hawes: Toby, we'll get started in a few minutes, how many teams, I usually wait a few more minutes [7:22] Public commenter: just to let people dribble in a little space, yeah, I've been trying to do this the [8:07] Susan Hawes: light Well, so we'll get started in a few minutes. I'm just letting a few minutes, a few more [8:12] Public commenter: people come up. All right. [9:11] Susan Hawes: We should get started. Welcome, Toby. If you want to go right in and introduce yourself and being live streamed as well on YouTube and so people can watch [9:28] Toby Salmanosier: it later. Sure, yeah, thanks for inviting me. For folks I haven't met, my name is Toby Salmanosier, she her, I'm the anti-hunger policy coordinator with the governor's office of policy innovation in the future, and I do have some slides I can pull up here, let me grab that. Okay, is everyone seeing that, all right? Yeah. Okay, great. Well, I thought I'd just share a bit about the Ending Hunger Initiative and Maine's Roadmap to End Hunger and where we're at now. Our folks, I guess before I jump in, are folks familiar with Maine's Roadmap and with the Ending Hunger Initiative already? Seeing some. Okay, great. Well, I'll just start with a little timeline and I can go through some of this more quickly, but just as a refresher, so this started back in 2019 when the legislature passed a resolve to end hunger by 2030, and then there was three-year process where a lot of community members, over 200 people, were engaged with actually writing the road map, and there were several interim reports. There in 2022, the legislature formally adopted the roadmap, and that's when my position was created at GOPIF, and then a Number of things have happened over the last year. We sent in our first annual report on the state of food insecurity in 2024. Highly recommend checking that out. That's also linked on our website. We adopted some short-term priorities that I'll go over in a few, and we also formed this new structure. So now fast forward to today, we are in the midst of doing some operations planning and really just trying to kind of figure out how we respond to all of the federal changes that have happened over the last year, and also just be prepared for a new incoming administration at the state level. So we yeah have some exciting things happening. We're also in the midst, I don't know if anyone followed LD2040 closely this last session, but that really has led us down this process of trying to determine how we'll continue to measure and assess food insecurity after the USDA household food insecurity report was canceled this fall. So just a quick refresher on the roadmap. The roadmap really lays out this dual approach, so that we have to both respond to food insecurity today while also going upstream to really address the root cause of the issue. And the roadmap does a really great job of laying out how hunger is really a symptom of poverty, and so responses there are closely linked to responses to poverty. The roadmap has these five pillars and goals, so building the infrastructure and capacity to actually implement the roadmap, and I'd say we're We're still working on this in a lot of ways, expanding food access, promoting bolstering economic security, closing the equity gap, and then changing the narrative around food insecurity. A couple of years ago, well, I guess end of 2024, we came up with these six short-term priorities. And I should also just say I'm somewhat new to this role. I started in the fall, so I wasn't here through a lot of these processes, but I've just learned a lot from being in this role. But these are the six short-term priorities we adopted at the end of 2024. I won't read all of these, but just to say that we really at that point identified this focus around the federal nutrition programs and that people with lived experience really need to be at the center of decision-making. As you all know, I'm sure, the focus on federal nutrition programs has really been challenged the last year, as we've seen pretty significant and harmful cuts to SNAP and soon to Medicaid. So we've really been, yeah, just kind of adapting and trying to respond to that over the last year or so, and I can speak more to that in a minute. Just wanted to share this little visual of some of the different entities and groups that are involved in this work. We have a group that meets monthly that I convene. That's folks from the state agencies, so DHHS, Department of Agriculture, Department of Education. We also have the Ending Hunger Advisory Committee, which is a more formal body that's nominated by the Department of Agriculture, by the commissioner, and that's made up of folks who are doing this work on the ground, non-profits, advocates, and then a third of the committee is folks with lived experience. Then we also have a couple of different coalitions and folks that are working to implement the roadmap. Priorities. So Full Plates is currently hosting the Ending Hunger in Maine Network, and I'll share a link in the chat if folks are interested in getting signed up for those updates. And then we also have a newer coalition that formed this past fall called the Hunger Free Maine Group that's really working to advocate for some of the policy changes that we want to see. I wanted to just take a moment to talk about some of the SNAP cuts that have happened, because this is really, this has been a big focus of the initiative, and obviously HR1 has really set us back here. So there's a couple of changes that have already gone into place: expanded work requirements, so for people 55 to 64, they now have to worry about the work requirements, which they did not have to do previously. We've also seen the elimination of eligibility for folks who are here lawfully, who received benefits previously, like asylees and refugees. Fortunately, Maine does have a state funded SNAP program, so a lot of those people have been able to transition over, but we've still seen several hundred people lose benefits because of that. That. This fall, the state is responsible for picking up a greater share of the administrative costs to SNAP, so previously that was shared 50-50 between the state and the feds. That's shifting to 25-75, so the state will be on the hook for 75% of that funding. And then the big looming cost shift won't happen until 2028, but that's when the state might for the first time have to actually pay part of the benefit amount, which is a really big deal. It's always been a federally funded program for Maine. That might look like 50 million dollars a year at our current payment error rate, so it's it's really significant. I also should just note on the under the bucket of SNAP too, we have seen a pretty steady decline in SNAP really since HR1 went into effect. So starting in, I'd say August, October, we can really just see this sharp decline and we're down. I think, you know, from early 2025, we're down about 20,000 people off SNAP. From August onward, we're down about 10,000 people off SNAP. Some slight positive news on the SNAP front. We do now have a network of SNAP outreach contractors tractors who are helping get the word out. So the materials on the left here from Full Plates, and I'll, I have a lot of links I'll put in the chat, but I'll share those. There's some really great flyers, but also really in-depth information about how the SNAP program works. So highly recommend checking that out. And then on the right is a flyer from Southern Maine Area Agency on Aging that they did on work requirements for older adults specifically. So make sure folks have those links. We also have Food and Medicine as a provider in the Bangor area for SNAP outreach as well. And then I just had a couple other resources I wanted to share and put in a good word for. We have the Ending Hunger in Maine dashboard, which is a great place to go if you're looking for other data on food insecurity. We also have these county fact sheets here. And again, I should know we are in these active conversations knowing that we no longer have the USDA report as sort of our foundation, so you'll see that up on the dashboard. The last number we get for that is from 2022 to 2024, and then we will no longer have data from the USDA. And then lastly, if you're not already connected, highly recommend getting signed up for this sub stack that has a lot of updates about policies and different things related to food security and food programs in the state. So I will try to get all those links in the chat, but happy to open it up to any questions or thoughts, anything else folks have. Yeah. [19:26] Susan Hawes: Does anybody have any questions? [19:31] Public commenter: Not really a question, but I just wanted to mention that at Bangor Public Health and Community Services, we held the SNAP education contract for Penobscot and Piscataquist counties since 2012 I think is when we started that, and that education program was eliminated in the great big bill, and that program closed effectively the end of December, but Maine has allocated some rural health transformation program funding to continue nutrition education, and that focus will kind of transition to being a food is medicine focus. So whereas with SNAP education, it was really a focus on people who were low income and qualified for SNAP in this new program model. model, it really is, from what I understand so far, trying to really connect food to health and healthy food to health and emphasize partnerships with hospitals and healthcare. care and so we're not entirely sure how that is going to look yet, but one of the things that we're kind of jazzed about is that the snap requirements were kind of limiting in how we could serve people, and we had to hold classes in places that were like that qualified geographically as a low-income area, so if you didn't have a place to hold the class that was you know in that area, because sometimes it's hard to find places to hold you know events that meet the needs, and so it could be kind of limiting some sometimes, and so we're excited that because we also know I mean that a lot of people who are low income have higher rates of chronic illness, and so I think for us, we'll probably be serving many of the same people, but just we'll have more opportunity and options and flexibility about how that happens. [22:29] Toby Salmanosier: Yeah, really excited about that program and the new, yeah, the new name and focus. Really great. [22:38] Public commenter: roslyn yes i'm ros fisher and i'm a member of the food justice committee faith linking in action and our committee created the calendars the qr codes the whole thing for food pantries and meals and so they're in the bangor area and if you don't know about those you can look on the faithlinkinginaction.org website and access and there's also a list now of the locations for all of these programs so and i also help with the community meal at first united methodist church we serve at least 120 free Meals every Thursday from four to six, so food is a big thing. I'm also a member of the child care team from Faith, Thinking, and Action, but today we're not talking about child care, but it all is related because we know that one out of five kids in Maine is food insecure. Am I correct? Yes. And we've been fortunate that school meals have been covered by the state. But nobody knows. And if you see the Good Shepherd ads, I will say, and they are ads, she has to say how bad things are, that you cannot order the same things that you used to order, you know, for the meals, whatever. So Kathy Merrill, who's our coordinator, can put together a salad with whatever comes in. It may be cabbage and oranges or whatever it was yesterday. But she figures out how to make things work. So it's a whole meal. And so people just drive up, pick up the meal. No questions asked. We don't know who has SNAP. We don't care. Whatever. But the problem with our location is as you probably know the bus doesn't run up Essex Street, so unless it's available and occasionally there is a walk-up person, but not often, we've also had cars pull up with five kids in the car, they were living in the car are. Yeah. So we get a real big variety of people coming to the community meal, but there are no questions asked, no eligibility, no residential, whatever. I know that some of the food pantries are now limiting, which they started doing COVID. And it's, you have to be a resident of such and such place in order to be eligible because during COVID, I know that people were coming from Waterville to come to Bangor for the food pantry said yeah, you know, so that was a problem, but anyway, you know, this is such a huge problem and I certainly, I know we don't have answers, you know, answers, but Faith in Action was developed to look at the root causes, the barriers of poverty, and one of these is definitely funded, so any access we can have is great. Anything we can do. [25:55] Susan Hawes: Thank you, that's great. Alyssa, how are things going at Eastern Area with like Meals on Wheels and all of those programs? [26:11] Toby Salmanosier: Yeah, so I would say in general there's a lot of need. Meals on Wheels, I know we still have a wait list for folks that's pretty extensive. I don't know the exact timeline, but that's definitely something we hear pretty often, food insecurity. So I'm the community case manager for anyone who I haven't met before. So it's something that I talk with consumers about pretty often, whether it's food resources, services, or maybe help with Medicare. Or I even had someone today come in about something they got in the mail that might be a scam, it might be a legitimate piece of information for a settlement. So we kind of cover a lot of different topics. I do walk-ins over at the Durgan Center in Brewer on Tuesdays and Fridays. Days. So on those days, I see a lot of different types of things. But yeah, I would say food and security is something we see a lot. And through our agency, if someone is 60 plus, we have our commodity food box program. We also talk a lot about the farm share program. But yeah, I know quite a few people have recently come in who have food stamps or SNAP and have shared, you know, either a decrease in the amount of money that they're getting, or it's just not really a significant amount that they're getting, you know, even for a, say, a family of one, maybe only getting fifty dollars a month. I mean, it does help, but I have heard from quite a few people who, you know, at that point, they don't really know what other resources there are for them. So again, that's kind of something that we try to help with and share other resources, but it is something that we hear about quite often. Wow. [28:57] Susan Hawes: Thank you. [29:01] Public commenter: Any other comments or questions? Yeah, Dominic, go ahead. Dominic Rizzo, resident of Bangor, and I'm just wondering, a general question, is there a resource or a place where, and I'm sure everything shifts and changes, but where there's a list of where people could go to food pantries and when they're open and places to get food? I mean, is there one place or two places? Yeah, Roslyn has it. [29:28] Toby Salmanosier: Okay, well, yeah, and well, if you're looking on a statewide level, there's the Main Food Access Map app too, which does have pretty much everything in one place, food pantries. It also has like retailers. I'll throw a link, and I'm giving you a lot of links in the chat, but I'll put that in there too, and that has also where you can go to like apply for benefits and that sort of thing. You could also go, if you're looking for just pantries, you could also go to Good Shepherd's site, and then it sounds like you've got good local resources too. I'm [30:05] Public commenter: Just wondering if there's a place where it's written down where all of them or just so if I'm walking in the street and someone is hungry, I could say, here is information that you could go for a free meal or pick up some groceries and do that, as opposed to go to a website and do all that. We have so many non-profits in the area and people who are helping, why can't we, and I guess a part of it is they change, it's an unknown, but why can't we gather the information and have it one place, and even for say specific locations, if you're from Waterville and have them in the water, you go Bangor, let's have the ones that are in Bangor, just so we could post them out in the somewhere at the library, the streets, whatever, on polls or hand them out, okay Ross, well calendars and QR. Codes and believe me almost every street person has a cell phone so that they have the QR phone, it's at the transportation center, it's at the library, it's many places, we have access agencies that you know if they're going to the Shoestring Thrift Shop in Brewer, whatever, the Brewer library, there are many places in the Bangor area, the problem with the lists is the lists don't all match, and our lists are updated at least every two months, one of the problems that we have is trying to keep things up. To date and that was why this whole thing was started because nobody was doing this, and you can have a list but if somebody's changed the hours or they've done something they don't do anymore, then it's of no value, and so ours is updated through Mark Crier, Bureau of Labor, at the Humane, and so they update this, and it's up to the provider to respond when they send out the surveys, you know, is there a change, is there something you want us to add or take off, you know, because there's nothing more. Frustrating than have somebody go to a place and find out oh we don't do that anymore, so but to have one list, I don't know that it's possible because the one list that comes from the state doesn't necessarily match everything else, we have tried to see if we could get that all to be together but that really hasn't happened, so if you can figure it out Dominic let us know, Mark would be happy. [32:44] Toby Salmanosier: Yeah, I can make it. Oops, sorry, go ahead. [32:47] Public commenter: I don't get it, but I firmly believe that our committee, you know, has worked hard on this for quite a few years. In fact, we got a donation from the Baldacci Foundation for this. And so we're trying to get the website to be even more user friendly. But the more things we add, it's [33:12] Toby Salmanosier: harder to get it all in one place so yeah i was just going to add that over here at the durgan center in brewer we use the faith linking inaction lists those are our main lists that we give because we can see how often they are updated so if someone comes in and maybe doesn't meet the criteria of, or like the age requirements for, say, the commodity box that we have, or maybe they need supplemental things in the meantime, those are the lists that we give. So I've had really good luck with using those lists as well. [34:03] Public commenter: And I guess I just want to add one last thing. I know most people have cell phones, but we have to be cautious of assuming everyone does, and just like in Maine everyone drives, well not everyone drives, so you know you have to look out for also the people who don't fit into those categories. So that's, that's my concern, and if there's a, even a small list of organizations in Bangor, because we're in Bangor, that on a regular basis seem to always have a schedule with food. And if it's like two or three out of maybe six, you know, at least then if there was information to hand out to people or post it somewhere. It's just like, I mean, you're the experts and Rosalind, you know, you all have more experiences. This is just someone who isn't as involved but just questioning other options to help people because walking around downtown if people are asking for food then at least if you can't give them the money you could say well hey it's Thursday you could go to the brick church or whatever you know they're serving lunch or they're serving meals later on today so that 's just my point I guess well I just put a link in [35:26] Toby Salmanosier: the chat. I think, I don't know if you've looked at their list, but it might answer your concerns, because that looks like that is what Faith Linking in Action has put together, is Bangor specific places people can go for free food. Thank you. Yeah, that's great. Just put that in the chat with the [35:44] Public commenter: other maps available, and it's posted to the transportation center, so that's one place that's accessible to many people, and so you know, okay, that's good to know. Yeah, I like that. The other thing is we're trying to do is to survey, as a new member of our team that has looked at what has happened in the past year, which is what you know you all are dealing with, how has it changed with all of the HR, whatever, I hate the big beautiful, it's the big bad bill, but anyway, you know, are you seeing more people? Are you seeing different? Is it harder to get volunteers? Blah,, blah. You know, so we're trying to survey, get the feedback. What can we do more? You know, there are food pantries in Orono. There are food pantries right in this area. It's not strictly just Bangor, but, and transportation is going to be a problem no matter what, so you know this is only one piece of the puzzle. But sorry I got on my soapbox, but I'm I'm just as strong. I don't know how to use a QR code, I've tried it, but you know one piece of the puzzle. And I just admire the people, Suzanne Kelly is chair and she and Kathy Berry and have gone around to different for places interviewed people who are using the calendars or have they ever heard of the calendars or do they know about the calendars or blah,, all that. So we try to get feedback, you know, what else can we add? You know, how can we make it better? [Susan Hawes: Yeah, that's great.] Maybe, I'm sorry to interrupt, maybe it's something our local committee, the ACRE committee, and of course I have to say what ACRE is, it's the advisory committee on racial equity and well include inclusion and there's something I'm missing, but anyway we have a committee like that. Maybe there's a way that they might at least be able to address that and how to get the information out there to [38:03] Susan Hawes: people. Yeah, I mean maybe we should create a pamphlet even if that would need to be updated stated often, which it was stated on the panel, so that you know people could carry that around and [38:15] Public commenter: like you say hand it out to people. There is someone at St Joe's Hospital, you guys might, someone might know about this, her name is, yeah she's on our team, yeah the woman who owns the Dreamer cafe. Anybody who walks into that place sees a PCP or anybody else they get a survey about you know nutrition etc. They also get the information about the calendars and so forth yeah there's a woman at Saint who works at Saint Joe's, she also owns the Dreamer Cafe over Oh, yes, she, I forget what she calls them, but she's worked with like she has worked to kind of try to problem solve this same thing, and has developed a set of like I don't know it's like a keychain with a bunch of cards on it that have all of the resources on them. And so her thinking was she had seen so many people come into the hospital that didn't like know where things were or didn't have a pamphlet or whatever it was, and so created this way for people to like more easily carry stuff around so I don't Know that's a long way of saying, like, maybe there's some relationship between these two things, or maybe if we could, I'm sorry, my son, he's probably wanting to know if he really needs to open the cat boxes, so I could try to figure out where that is, and yeah, like, get some more information from her. Yeah, that would be great. Okay, yeah, well. Talia is on the staff of Saint Joe's, and she leads a lot of the spiritual thing, but she has gone out of her way to make sure that, as I said, people coming into that hospital for whatever reason know about the calendars, I know about dreamers, and I know where it is, and I support them very much. But I was not aware of keychains. That, so Talia maybe can talk to her, and maybe they, you know, there's some way to make that all go together, but you know, we hand out free papers, I mean, you know, but a lot of. People don't like to carry a paper around, and what they have found at St Joe's, Talia said, is that dignity of picking up something, a card, a little card, you know, just like a business card, is much higher than picking up a paper that everybody knows you need help. I don't know if anybody else has found that, but that's what they've found, that Talia's found at St Joe's. [41:42] Susan Hawes: Yeah, that makes sense, you know, that because a card you can put in your pocket and yeah. [41:50] Public commenter: Looks like a business card, they're at the libraries, they're all, you know, they're all over. [41:56] Susan Hawes: They're all over. Okay, good, well, this is good. Any other comments or questions? Well, thank you, Toby. Yeah, Toby, thank you so much for taking time out for us. Thanks so much for the. [42:13] Toby Salmanosier: For the invite, yes, and yeah, thanks, feel free, and just to share the links too. Yeah, great, if. [42:22] Public commenter: You can share all those resources, that would be great, if you can just do it in emails, because I. [42:26] Toby Salmanosier: Don't do well getting them out of the chat. Totally, oh, and let me know if you're able to grab those, or if you need anything from me, but I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your Friday. Yeah, thank. [42:37] Public commenter: You so much, bye. Oh, that was great, that was cool. Thank you for making it easy to get on today. I tried 15 minutes last month and I never was able to. I know, yeah, we were having a hard time, I'm all over it last month, but this, worked out fine, because the link was right in where it said the calendars, and I could go to it. Last time I could not find what, so thank you. [43:08] Susan Hawes: Well, good, anybody have any announcements? [43:13] Public commenter: Our church is having a huge yard sale the 26th and 27th, and if you go by 703 Essex Street you will see a big white tent and a lot of small tents, everything from clothes and housewares and pet stuff and plants and kids and a bake sale and you name it. That sounds awesome. 9 to 2 on Friday night in, well that's not true, it's longer on Friday. I said that wrong. It's nine to two on Saturday, it's nine to five Friday, so come. It's all, it's all by donation, we don't put prices on anything. I saw a woman leave with a couch, she put a dollar on it and it was delivered to her place. She didn't have a couch. Yeah, that's cool, that's great. I do want to mention if I may, I just thought us, I don't have the specific except that Downtown Bangor Partnership will be having their summer solstice gathering on summer solstice day. Yeah, I, is that the 20th, the 20th, and I'll say I don't have the exact, it's going to be at the down the other parks right off of Franklin and you know Central, and it's usually around I want to say five o'clock till, yeah, I think it starts. Anyway, you can always look it up on Facebook on the Downtown Bangor Partnership if anyone's interested. It's always kind of fun and it's always like snacks and entertainment and family friendly and all those good things. [44:55] Susan Hawes: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, good. All right, so sometimes we take July off. I don't have a speaker for July yet, so we may take July off. In August, we are going to have a speaker talk about scams, about phishing scams, and phone scams, and how AI is being used in scams. So it's pretty bad out there, but so we'll get some good tips on that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you.