YMCA Southcoast: Addressing Mind, Body and Spirit

In April of 2020, as COVID-19 raged around the globe, The Greater Boston Food Bank reached out to YMCA Southcoast because Fall River had the third highest ranking in the Commonwealth for food insecurity, and GBFB wondered if the Y might be able to help. 

“We were always touching food insecurity through the children in our childcare and after-school programs, but we didn’t do community food assistance work prior to the pandemic,” says Lisa Rahn, Community Outreach Director for YMCA Southcoast. “We decided to get involved. It was initially grass-roots and very chaotic, but it was so successful that GBFB was soon delivering twice a week, and the line for assistance formed well in advance,” Rahn remembers. They realized that this was a new role they could fulfill, not just in Fall River, but eventually through mobile markets across five of the Y branches that comprise their network – Dartmouth, Fall River, New Bedford, Swansea and Wareham – and through partners at other nonprofit organizations in remote and rural areas. 

“GBFB gave us a starter grant,” Rahn says. “We couldn’t have gotten started without that. We needed a larger freezer, a larger cooler, a truck, staff to manage the project…” Such was the origin of the Full Plate Project, which evolved into a formal partnership between YMCA Southcoast and GBFB in the fall of 2020, funded by what’s known as a transformational grant – a three-year commitment made through GBFB’s Community Investment Grant program. 

Full Plate today serves anywhere from 175 to 660 households at each mobile market, on schedules that vary from once a month to every Tuesday. In 2022, Full Plate volunteers donated 6,546 hours and distributed over 1.6M pounds of food throughout the Southcoast region. Yet it’s not nearly enough. Sy Yules, Full Plate Project Manager, says that even though they’re distributing 150,000 pounds of food each month, their immediate goals include more capacity to increase that number. Between January 2022 and January 2023, he says, YMCA Southcoast has seen a 100 percent increase in the need for food among the communities they serve. 

 “The fact that there are hungry people in the United States of America is a travesty,” says Lisa Rahn. “In a country with the resources that we have, that there are people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from is sinful…. We know we’re not going to solve all the problems, but we know we ‘re helping a lot of people through this program and we’re catching people who fall between the cracks of the social safety net.” 

“The basic mission of the YMCA is to help develop the whole person in mind, body and spirit,” explains Sy Yules. “If you ever come to one of our markets, you’ll see those things in action. What we do with the Full Plate Project is in line with our stated mission from the very beginning.” 

Lyn Dillies, co-founder of YMCA Southcoast partner Dartmouth United Outreach, working with Sy in the warehouse on the day we spoke, adds simply, “We’re feeding people hope as much as we’re feeding them food.”  

Recently GBFB announced an additional round of Community Investment Grants to partner agencies. This investment will help them to further expand their capacity to provide additional healthy, nutritious food to meet the need in the community.