Fair Foods: COVID-19 Relief Fund

Fair Foods has distributed over 100,000,000 pounds of fresh food to the Greater Boston area in its 40 years of operation. Our program has always offered fresh fruits and vegetables in the form of a mixed bag for little or no cost to any person in need (http://fairfoods.org/). Unfortunately,  as a direct result of the COVID-19 crisis, our program has lost its self-sustainability due to losses suffered during the state-mandated closure. During this time, Fair Foods' founder, Nancy Jamison, utilized her personal savings in order to keep Fair Foods afloat but has now run out of funds to keep Fair Foods in Boston.

Although we have reopened some of our former distribution sites, about 10 out of 60, and added new locations in East Boston, Brockton and Allston, we are not able to open all of our sites due to a lack of funds and a desire to keep safe during these odd times. Additionally, a large majority of our former sites were held in buildings that are still closed due to this pandemic.

Our goal is to obtain a new warehouse space that will allow our program to manufacture bags prior to distribution in a safe and sanitary environment which will allow us to open more locations. In order to do this, we will need funds to pay for the overhead as well as our labor. Currently, the majority of our staff and volunteers are over 70 years old and are immunocompromised. In order to stay safe and reduce the spread of the coronavirus, we have determined that we will need to hire additional staff and move into a space that has a loading dock for our trucks.


This 1 million dollar goal is a long-term one that will allow Fair Foods to continue to serve those in need for years to come and help get us back to our self-sustainability from our two-dollar bag program.  This and any support to our program will promise that no matter what happens people will always be able to have access to affordable fresh produce in abundance.  So many of us, our neighbors and friends, have become food insecure as a result of the COVID-19 and this is an issue of increasing importance.


Last year Fair Foods distributed over 4 million pounds of produce and our program is one of the only organizations that can provide fresh fruits and vegetables at just 25 cents per pound and maintain a 70% self-sustainability model. However, we need help in order to continue this service.


We are asking you, our partners, neighbors, friends, funders, and constituents to please help Fair Foods by donating today so that we can continue to provide for our communities and those in need for years to come.