Fair Foods is a charitable organization set up in Dorchester that works to serve food to poor families all over the Boston area, as well as send clothes, paint, and other items to places around the country and around the world.
The organization makes use of food and material that would otherwise go to waste despite being perfectly ready for consumption. High-priced fruits and vegetables in grocery stores are frequently thrown out, while low-income families are left eating unhealthy packaged foods due to their significantly lower price tags.
Fair Foods provides food for a variety of shelters and food pantries, but also has designed a Two Dollar-a-Bag program. For five days each week, Fair Foods distributes twelve-pound bags of different fruits and vegetables for a suggested donation of two dollars. The organization’s program is active in twenty different locations, ranging from churches to senior centers.
Even without receiving any money at all, the organization will give as many bags as desired — no registration or ID for eligibility required.
Jason Cammarata, one of the seven to eight full time staff members of the organization, juggles a variety of responsibilities ranging from managing the website to driving food trucks.
“I got involved with Fair Foods because it was a very unique non-profit charity organization,” Jason said. “It is run for the people, by the people.”
Besides the small cluster of staff members, Fair Foods activities are almost entirely run by volunteers coming from the communities that Fair Foods serves.
“We are primarily active in the Boston area, but we send supplies to other areas as well. We contributed lumber and paint to New Orleans, for instance. A lot of customers are immigrants who send our dry foods home to places like Haiti because it is much more affordable for them.”
Although many other organizations work to help feed and shelter the poor, much of fundraised and grant money funnels into the wrong aspects of their programs.
“The problem with most non-profits is that most of them are spending on administration. Some of these groups have up to 60,000 dollars at their disposal. It makes you wonder what would happen if it was given directly to the community and how much good it would do. Unfortunately, most of these groups are the ones that get the grants to run their programs and they do not always go to good use,” Jason said.
“We don’t have the kinds of connections these bigger groups have, and we have a lack of funding. It’s hard to get grants. Most of our funding comes from small grants and private donations, and our day-to-day activities are funded by the Two Dollars-a-Bag program. The founder, Nancy Jamison, contributed up to 1.5 million dollars to get it going. She could have kept that money for herself, but she instead used it for something better.”
The work Fair Foods does not only addresses the issue of hunger in America, but also the rising levels of diabetes and obesity. The fact is, unhealthy packaged foods are what many poor families end up receiving instead of nutritious produce that will keep them healthy.
“We want to do what we can to stay a grass roots effort,” Jason said. “But  we always need more volunteers.”
For more information on Fair Foods and how to volunteer, visit their website: www.fairfoods.org