In 2020, George Wiley Center has reached out to thousands in our network and hundreds of our low-income members in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachussetts to bring food to our local communities throughout the seasons, not just at the holidays.
vegetables and groceries
At the beginning of the pandemic, we partnered with Providence and Pawtucket Food not Bombs to meet Rhode Islanders’ increased financial hardships with free, local, nutritious groceries.
Thanks to donations from local farms including Scratch Farm, Freedom Farm, Gotham Greens, and Ward’s Berry Farm, as well as donations from local bakeries, we are able to provide grocery bags with fresh local produce, grains, and canned goods to hundreds of Rhode Islanders each week.
Grounded by our belief in restorative justice, we work closely with the community gardens operated by Roots2Empower, which provide opportunities for skill-building and job training to formerly incarcerated individuals, specifically people of color, and aim to increase food sovereignty in our communities.
connecting with local fishing & free-range, organic livestock
The GWC is excited to participate in a new program in partnership with the Commercial Fisheries of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Food Policy Council established to connect Rhode Island’s communities with freshly-caught local species of fish. We have donated over 2,500 lbs of locally caught fresh scup and hake to our members and people in our community facing food insecurity.
Thank you to our collaborators at What’s Good and Wild Harmony Farms for helping us provide free-range, local livestock to our members. This holiday season we were able to donate organic, pasture-raised turkeys from Wild Harmony Farm thanks to our partnership with What’s Good. We look forward to expanding on our relationships built during the COVID-19 crisis.