Landon and Fynn Taliercio load donated goods into their car Saturday, Aug. 15 outside Turner Community Center.
JENNA OUTCALT
Staff Writer
On Saturday mornings, while Chautauquans are moving in and out of their accommodations on the grounds of the Institution, a dedicated group of volunteers are driving around the grounds to pick up food donations, converging at Turner Community Center to weigh the food and take it to Mayville Food Pantry.
This is the first season Chautauqua Institution has piloted the food collection program. Claire Johnson Baker, a contractor working with Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative, explained how the program evolved throughout the summer.
At first, the program accepted donations at Turner Community Center for a two-hour window each Saturday. During Week Three, Johnson Baker said they realized they needed to meet people where they were to make donations easier. They decided to place donation bins at the Post Office Building, Main Gate Welcome Center, Turner Community Center and the Colonnade, which they would collect every Saturday.
“When we switched and we set up the donation bin locations and started promoting that, we started seeing a lot more donations come through, and it really kind of took off from there,” Johnson Baker said.
In the first three weeks, the food rescue’s total was less than 20 pounds of food. In the fourth week alone, it received 120 pounds of food. Now, the grand total is almost 500 pounds.
“We started the season really thinking that we’ll get a ton of food every week,” Johnson Baker said. “But if somebody’s only here for a week, the chances that they’re going to have a ton of extra unopened food is pretty narrow, and what we’re really seeing is a lot more volume coming in now that the season’s ending.”
The volunteers picking up the food include triplets Landon, Ethan and Fynn Taliercio. Their grandmother, Marge Metzger, is a board member of Mayville Food Pantry.
“I thought this would be a great experience for the boys while they’re here, and they really have done all the work,” she said.
Landon said he enjoyed seeing the difference the food made at the pantry.
“I’d say my favorite part about this experience is going to the food pantry and looking at the before of how much food there was and then how much we put in, and how that’s been adding up throughout the past seven weeks,” he said.
Ethan said he never expected the quantity of food they ended up receiving.
“The scale of it is more impacting than I thought,” he said. “… Communities of Chautauqua County that are impoverished areas, they could use some help, and there’s a lot of food here that gets wasted.”
Fynn also said he appreciated learning about the impact on the community.
“We’re very fortunate in our little bubble (of) the Institution,” he said. “But outside of here, it’s one of the poorest counties in New York, and it’s been learning about the issue and doing what we can to help that has been the most impactful for me.”
Metzger said the food pantry was “very fortunate” to have Chautauqua Institution. She said, “I think it’s a great way to not only help with food waste, but to help a very poor county outside the gates.”
According to Metzger, this year was a learning process, but next year could see growth.
“Hopefully next year we can expand it to Jamestown and other food pantries around here, but right now, it’s worked with Mayville,” she said.
Johnson Baker said she hopes to improve the program next year to refine its measurement and cataloging systems.
“I think that we have a better idea of how we can meaningfully deploy our volunteers as well, because that was something that we struggled with in the early weeks,” she said.
Johnson Baker also said she wanted to see the program become more consistent for the community.
“I think that Chautauqua County in general could really support a larger operation of this sort, and I think that’s part of what this off-season … will be focused on,” she said. “How do we shepherd this in the right direction for county-wide needs, not just nine weeks of the year?”
Johnson Baker said the community buy-in was a major factor in the program’s success this year.
“A lot of people were reaching out and offering support and ideas, and it helped a lot, honestly,” she said. “I don’t know if we would have gotten quite as successful of a program if there hadn’t been the sense of wanting this to succeed that the Chautauqua community provided.”
