The Giving Garden® Loyalty Program

The Giving Garden® Podcast Episode 9 with Anne Mernin

Click the image below to listen to Episode 9 with special guest, Anne Mernin, Executive Director of Toni's Kitchen. For a full transcript, scroll further down.

Full transcript of Episode 9

Martina Halloran: Welcome to The Giving Garden® Podcast, where we explore the power of giving, the connections that shape our communities in the acts, big and small, that help us thrive together. Today's guest has turned the idea of a soup kitchen into something far greater. For over a decade, Anne Mernin, executive director of Toni's Kitchen in Montclair, New Jersey, has led with a vision rooted in dignity, innovation, and collaboration that build lasting independence. We'll talk about the programs reaching families, seniors, and hard to reach populations, the volunteers who make it all possible, and the creative ways Anne and her team are meeting both urgent needs and long term challenges in their community.

This is a conversation about food. Yes. But this is also a conversation about dignity, resilience, and the ripple effects of giving. Anne, welcome to The Giving Garden® Podcast.

Anne Mernin: Thank you. It's so nice to be here, Martina.

Martina Halloran: Thank you. Food is near and dear to my heart. I'm so excited to share the work that you're doing because I think the work that you're doing lends a space for people to understand that they can also do something, not just listen or take a look or make a donation. There's so many different levers to giving. And I think that your organization kinda speaks to all of them in so many different ways.

So I'm gonna jump right in. Most importantly, for listeners unfamiliar with the organization, can you tell us a little bit more about what Toni's Kitchen is?

Anne Mernin: Sure. So we are a food support organization, and we're located in a community that is socioeconomically diverse and in a suburban community. And that's an important factor in terms of how we see food insecurity and how we address it. So our programs are very diverse and are designed to reach people where they are. So we work with community partners that might be running a tutoring program or a mentoring program and make sure they have healthy food in it for their attendees.

We also do home deliveries primarily to seniors, but we also have some families where there is an issue going on where they need food delivered to their home. We run a food truck, which is a typical food truck sort of cooked to order meals, which goes out into the community for people generally who are unhoused, who are unable to prepare or store food. So it's a dignified way for them to come together and get something to eat. We also do what we call neighborhood mobile markets. These are like a choice pantry, but out in a community.

We usually work through a partner, though not always, and they're embedded in areas where there's very high need. Those happen once a week and people can come and select groceries. About 50% of that is fresh produce in a way that's convenient to them. And then on-site, we have Choice Pantry, which also has a resource hub attached to it where we do we provide wraparound services.

That serves primarily families with children and some seniors. And then we also have our original program, which is a soup kitchen. And that program is really designed for people who often times are in unhoused or living in limited housing without refrigeration, cooking facilities. They may have to be out by a certain time. Often this population needs to come together and be in community because they are bringing with them a lot of sense of failure in their lives.

So a lot of mental health issues, a lot of difficulty with establishing and maintaining social connections. So this is a this particular population, it's good for them to sit together, have a meal served to them in a dining room, establish friendships, and then you can add in connective services once you've established their trust.

Martina Halloran: Well, that's robust to say the least. One of the major things when people are food insecure is the idea of access. You know, how am I some people may be in a situation where they don't have the transportation or to your point, they don't have the facilities to store food. But access is critical and meeting people where they are is such a fundamental part of the work that you're doing because I think it allows you to reach so many different populations in a way. And you I'll use your word because I think it's a very important word, dignity.

And the idea of, you know, there's so many, you know, social cultural nuances with the idea of not being able to feed yourself. And what does that look like? And it there's societal, there's so much shame with that in creating space for people to fill themselves with the nutrients that they need to be productive people in the world. There's no shame in that not to be able to do that and to be able to get access to that in a way that serves them in a really healthy mental emotional way, I think is critical.

Anne Mernin: Yes. A lot of our the guests of our neighborhood markets and our choice pantry on-site are people who are working. They're working very hard. Right? They're driving buses.

They're ringing up your groceries. They're delivering your Uber Eats. So these are

Martina Halloran: People who are working very hard, but they cannot put together all the resources that they need. These are working people. I had a similar conversation with our friends out in Alameda County, and they're in Marin County. Similar very similar. I'm very familiar with Montclair.

Have some friends that live out there. And I think what a lot of people don't realize is that often, even at work, the person to your right or the person to your left may be food insecure, and they're really struggling even though they're working hard. They're coming to work. They're here on time. They're great employees.

But for whatever reasons, different circumstances, different people, those variables in their life do not allow them to really meet their nutrition needs. And I think the other thing that I heard from you, which I love, because it's a big part of The Giving Garden of what we try to offer is that it's fresh fruits and vegetables. So often when people are food insecure, those are the first things that go. And those are the things that your body really needs. Those are the best resources for really functioning in the best way on a daily basis.

When people think of food pantries, when I have conversations with people, and they're like, yeah, I'm cleaning out my kitchen to bring stuff to a food pantry. I'm like, stop. No. That is that's not the answer because, you know, you know what you eat. I think about what I need to feel fueled every single day.

And that does involve fruits, vegetables, salads, whatever, root vegetables. Everybody should have access to that. It shouldn't be for a limited group of people, especially in suburban areas where people are really void of the understanding that their neighbors may be struggling. I think food in insecurity in the suburbs can be hidden, and therefore, it's harder to get to because there's an assumption that you live in a suburb that is very hard to move into. Therefore, everyone in it is food secure, and that's just not the case.

And then I think there's all the rationale to people around somebody saying, well, why don't you just move? Or why don't you just you know, and those statements are big statements about people's lives. And it's not so easy to just pick up and move or relocate. And I think the shame factor and the stigma that comes with food insecurity really prevents and creates obstacles. So I love the fact that you have an access point for possibly every person in your community that's facing food insecurity, whether it's the actual soup kitchen, whether it's the pantry, whether it's the mobile, whether it's the markets.

There are so many entry points and the fact that you actually deliver food is critical. And I think it's just an incredible testament to your innovation of understanding that it's not only one solution. There are so many different solutions that are needed because people are in different places at different times. One of the things that I wanna talk about is that you chose to serve guests in a restaurant style instead of the traditional lineup model. When people think about historical soup kitchens, food lines, that is the image that comes to mind.

People are lining up. They're holding their plate. They're waiting to get served. Why was changing this model important to your organization?

Anne Mernin: What's interesting is the founders of Toni's Kitchen way back in 1982, they did a lot of research before they started what was then a three day a week soup kitchen. And one of the things they felt very strongly about was the idea of service with dignity, and that has obviously continued through the present day. So for a soup kitchen population, people who are unhoused who are, you know, moving between locations they can be during the day, it's a really physically and emotionally challenging way to live your day your daily life. So coming in and sitting down, putting your bags down, sitting at a table, having volunteers come and serve you several different courses of food, ask you how the food is, what you like, what you don't like, chatting with you about your day. That is, I think, as important as the food itself.

Right? Because you're being seen as an individual. You're at a table where you have established friendships usually. So it's a community. It's coming together.

It's sort of like going out with your friends for dinner on a Friday night. Right? That just sort of restores you. Same thing coming into the dining room. And then it also the other very important thing there is the population served in the dining room is the most or I should say the least able to fully live independently.

So that population really can be a little bit skittish in terms of trust, and trust needs to lead in order to connect in with other services. So having people come together around a table for a meal really establishes trust over time, and it opens people up to connecting with other services that are available.

Martina Halloran: Community is we're that's how we're built. You know, we're clan people. You know, when you when you think about it, that going it alone is difficult, especially if you're facing challenges. And I and I can't imagine the physicality, not just the mental strength that you need to move through the day, every single day unhoused. And I can imagine that that moment, that pause of community and a sense of being seen and heard, respected.

It's so often in so many different communities, people forget that, that humanity piece. And I think there's so many good intentions. People want to help people. I hear every single day. It's so good.

You wanna help people. You wanna help people. You wanna help people, but they don't really understand what that means. And it's such a blanket statement. And it's not necessarily grounded in a respect, this intention of respect.

Because as human beings, I think ultimately we wanna be respected. And it doesn't matter what profession you are, where you come from, what you do, that sense of respect that you have in a community that has a mutual understanding of your experience because everybody's experience is different. And I can appreciate the fact that if you've never been in that position, it's hard to understand the experience. And people often feel, well, I I don't really understand it. So my idea of helping is very different than what your idea of helping is.

And I think education is such a part of helping people, truly helping people understand how they can embrace their entire community, not just parts of their community, not just parts of the community that look good and feel pretty, but everybody who is living, whether they are housed or unhoused, it doesn't matter. Everybody living in that community, how do we engage as a whole community? Education is such a big piece of that. And also to working with different partnerships that can look through a different lens. And when I look at your organization, you're working with over 60 community partners.

So I can imagine their approach and their lens and their viewpoints are uniquely different. And 60 community partners to reach different people in different places. How do you do all of that coordination and that collaboration and really understanding what is the priority in that that those 60 groups? Because that's a lot of organizations to manage and filter in and funnel into your system.

Anne Mernin: It is. I mean, it's something we have built over time. We recognize that the community partners that we do food work with are people who have expertise in the population they serve. Mhmm. So if you're running a mentoring group for at risk teens, you sort of have the relationship, you understand the lives of these teens that you're serving.

So we want to make sure that your program has healthy food in it because you might not be someone oriented to nutrition or food access. Right? So we design programs that work for our partners and then fold them into you know, the larger sort of infrastructure of Tony's. We do a lot of work with seniors. So we know that seniors have needs that are very different than families with young children.

A lot of our partners do programming with seniors. So we look to them to say what type of food do you need? When do you need it? In what form do you need it? So we think of our partners as an extension, as a sort of a delivery mechanism for us, and they are the experts.

So we have to take what their needs are and then fold that into sort of the overall infrastructure of Tony's to make sure they're getting what they need when they need it.

Martina Halloran: The flexibility that your organization has is amazing because I think it's that's a really good point. There are certain people that know a certain population or know a certain space, but I don't know another space. And that's okay. And the fact that you have this ability to take an organization, understand through their communication what their needs are, and then fold them into your organization to be able to provide services to them, whether it's food services, education, mental health, physical health, all of those things. And I think it's a pretty amazing when you look at the ecosystem.

Right? When you look at the ecosystem of everybody working together and building these resources for multiple people. And it's like a multiplier effect because going out into the community, I know it's not easy in terms of a lot of the conversations I've had. There's so many people that are not being able to reach. And your programs, you have programs that intentionally reach specific populations, undocumented families, seniors, those that are isolated for whether it's for health reasons or transportation barriers.

What strategies are most effective in earning trust and sustaining connections with these communities? Because I know often it can be, I need help today, but I get the help. And then I kind of fall back and maybe don't wanna have further conversations. How do you build trust so people can really get involved across the various support tools that you do have?

Anne Mernin: I think we try and build a listening organization so that whether you're a staff member or a volunteer out running a neighborhood market or running a food truck or running the Choice Pantry on-site, you're really listening to people and hearing what they're telling you both directly and indirectly. And by building relationships and that sometimes it means that certain programs we have to have bilingual staff in because we know that's how the relationship is gonna be built, and that's how we're gonna best understand the population we're serving. This is how we begin to see what is needed in the community. We have ongoing conversations about uncovering new needs that have been unmet or shifts in the population. And so then you're just always redesigning, rethinking, reevaluating.

That's just sort of baked into the culture at Toni's. Our volunteers, we have a large and very involved volunteer pool. And they know to come to the staff to say, hey. I noticed this. I think this.

This might be a good idea. And they're just treasure to us. They bring us so many ideas. They bring us insights that we might have missed. I think it's really about the culture of the organization and really making sure everyone is invited into the conversation, guests, volunteers, staff.

Everyone is having an ongoing dialogue.

Martina Halloran: I had a wonderful conversation with somebody a couple months ago. And one of the takeaways that I had was this idea of systemic change and food justice. And their organization is moving more towards food justice. And when we when I think about that, I think about how does an organization like yours really manage and balance those immediate needs? You have so many immediate through all the programs you've shared with us, there are so many immediate needs.

But how do you balance that that urgent response with long term support that ultimately leads to systematic change?

Anne Mernin: So we don't see ourselves as you know, some food organizations will tell you that their goal is to put themselves out of business. And we don't do that because we don't think we as a food support organization can address the cost of health care, the cost of housing, the ability to have a living wage. These are things that are beyond our control. We basically get the effects of all that. Right?

So understood. Yeah. Supply housing, all of that becomes a food support issue. So we have shifted from the emergency model, which is how soup kitchens and food pantries were designed back in the seventies, eighties. We now think of ourselves as leveraging food support to build food security.

The definition of food security means you have reliable access to healthy food appropriate to your family or your household. So reliable is really important factor in there because if you're a mom and dad and you went and got food for the day or the week, but you don't know that you're gonna have food next week, you are taking that burden with you through every day. So if you can take that worry off people's minds and and create a structural solution, even though they're having a momentary issue. Right? So it might just be like, lost his job, mom's struggling, we're going through a rough time.

Maybe that's a four month period. Then you build something that's there for that period. But it's there also if dad breaks his leg, mom you know, single mom loses her job, it's there for a longer period. So everything that we build is designed to touch at least weekly any population we serve. So they know we're always there throughout the year regardless of, you know, weather or timing or whatever, we're there.

And it's that reliable piece coupled with access being designed specifically for them and then the offering of food being appropriate for their household. That's how we sort of move from an emergency kind of situation to having sort of a core infrastructure in place for food insecure families and households. Because as we see the when we look around and look at our economy, our economy does not adequately support all of the people participating in it. So you can be working a full time job and not be able to afford medical care or afford car insurance. So food supports can be a stabilizing factor in an economy that creates a lot of instability for a growing number of our population.

Martina Halloran: One of the things you mentioned more than once was appropriate. Appropriate food for your household or appropriate food for the individual. What happens in this food insecurity space when you have an unreliable source or something's happening, there's not one way to serve and support people, and everybody's unique and different. And I think there are cultural, social nuances to how we consume food, what we eat, what we can't eat. There's dietary limitations, especially if somebody has health issues, and they're really trying to feed themselves, but in a way that is appropriate for their needs.

And they're not just in a space where they're forced. This is what the food pantry has to offer today. So I'm gonna get my bag of, you know, white bread and a few potatoes or whatever it is. I think a lot of times people who are not understanding the bigger issue don't understand that people have health needs, and food is really connected to health and healthy communities.

Anne Mernin: It totally is. That's such an important point. One of the programs that we're just in the midst of implementing now is called a nutrition action program that's in our choice pantry. And we're very worried about the Medicaid cuts that we know are coming and that will impact many of our population. And through surveys, we know that our many of our guests have chronic nutrition related illnesses like hypertension, diabetes, obesity.

And this is from, you know, shopping at a CVS for dinner, right, which is what happens or a gas station market. This program brings together some medical providers to do screenings for particular values, you know, like blood glucose and a one c and various values. And then people can meet with a individual counselor at the pantry to talk about, well, you have diabetes. What did you have for dinner last night? Is there a way we can move forward with this?

And people are so hungry for the education piece of nutrition. We don't realize that many people have grown up without nutrition education. So they don't know necessarily where all the hidden places of salt and sugars are in our diet. So if you have a counselor who will meet with you and then shop with you at the market, at the Choice Pantry, And maybe you've never you know, maybe there's fresh cauliflower there and you've never used it before. Right?

Can give you ideas about how to use it or ideas about how to read a label on a can. These are really important skills. And then if you can do that week after week with a counselor, you can really move to have more control over these nutrition related illnesses that people very much want to control. Many are gonna lose their access to doctors. So education is sort of the way to step in.

And then a periodic check-in with medical providers on-site can give them sort of an understanding of how they're doing on the path. So yes, I think that nutrition, appropriateness of food, given your dietary needs, your health needs, your cultural needs. It's all like such an important factor in how we eat every day. Right?

Martina Halloran: Yeah. Food is medicine. You know, and when you look at many cultures across the world, food is medicine and that is their source for healing. And, you know, food can be a very powerful tool in health and wellness. And people of certain populations over index in those food related issues, whether it's diabetes, high cholesterol, you know, and it usually is people of color, you know, Latinx, Latin people.

And it has a lot to do with not just access, but socially, culturally how we were raised. You know, I'm Mexican. So, like, you know, the rice, the beans, the and at some point, because there wasn't that education piece to say, like, those are contributing factors to long term health issues. And if you can help create the space and the access like you're doing to add different aspects of really good nutritious food into your diet and creating a plan for people. I think people really do ultimately wanna feel good.

Food insecurity creates urgency, and urgency in that necessity overtakes other things. Like reading a label, is this nutritious? It really comes down to, I'm at the corner store. I'm at a convenience store or gas station, and I have $5, and I need to feed my family. There's gonna be some tough choices being made, and you're probably not gonna get the apples or the hard boiled eggs.

You're gonna get something that is gonna give people a little longevity in that $5, whether it's eating for two days or three days. It's not just it's not just people making bad decisions. I think it's people making desperate decisions. And that's one of the stigmas that that I'm hoping through conversations, people will start to understand when they see people who are food insecure that may not be the healthiest. It's because they're not eating well.

Well, they don't have the resources to eat well. And if they had the resources with education, their circumstance would probably be very different. And they're probably their physical appearance because unfortunately, many people will visually look at somebody and saying they they they versus trying to take a step back with a little bit of empathy, a little bit of compassion, and a little bit of dignity to perhaps understand the circumstance this person may be in. Sure. It sounds like your organization is doing all of that and then some, which is no easy task.

The challenges are so wide and so vast. And now when you look about the world and specifically the economic downturns that are happening in The United States, there's a public health care crisis. And clearly, Tony's kitchen is playing a role. We just talked about this program where people have access to doctors and health care, and that is going to

Anne Mernin: be

Martina Halloran: critical. Is that a program that you think is going to be sustainable long term of giving people access to health care within your organization?

Anne Mernin: You know, we do this through partnerships again. So we partner with medical providers, and we ask a couple of them to come on-site once a month and do very specific things with A1Cs, cholesterol, blood pressure, and BMI. So it's a very light ask. And we do that because we think that the light ask is sustainable. If we did a heavier ask of then asking that these guests of ours then become patients of theirs, perhaps uninsured patients, that's a really heavy ask.

Yeah. So which what we try to do is think of what can we ask for that is sustainable.

Martina Halloran: Mhmm.

Anne Mernin: What can we do on our side? So we know on our side, we can have nutrition educators, those we can provide, And we can provide the relationship management with the guests, and we can make sure we're following up with them every week. So it's really about, like, how can we piece something together that's meaningful to our guests who may not have access to healthcare or may have access but may not have the education of how to navigate a particular nutrition related chronic illness, then put something together that is sustainable. So that's kind of how we look, how we work. We have in our resource hub, which is where we have our wraparound services, we work with over 20 partners there who provide all different kinds of resources to our guest population.

Of those partners, one third of them have already gone through cuts due to the shifts that we're seeing. Mhmm. So we know that resources are going to become scarcer. We're gonna have to do a lot more with less. We're gonna have to be creative about how we design our asks.

So that's something we're really working on right now.

Martina Halloran: I try to edit the news. However, it's clear that people are losing benefits. People will lose health care access. People are losing snap benefits, and they're putting other pressures on populations to, you know, work, which, you know, I'm not against people working, but there there's a reality as to why some people are not engaged in the workforce. And there's limitations to their ability to access the workforce.

So it's clear that many, many people who seek your support and services are gonna start to lose benefits very quickly. So with that in mind and with what you were just sharing about having things that are sustainable, Light asks, what are some of the things that people can do to support this? Because this feels like it's coming, and it's gonna hit like a ton of bricks. It's going to hit so many people. So we talked about people who kind of hide their food insecurity, are living in a space of stigma.

This number of people is gonna explode over the next twelve months. How can people really help organizations like you? Really specifically, how can people help? Because I think there is a genuine desire for people to help, and they're starting to understand what's happening, especially with the SNAP benefits and how it works. So what can people do to help you further support the work that you're doing?

Anne Mernin: Well, I think people can, number one, just ask, you know, what kind of help do you need? Because different pantries will need different kinds of help. I think there's a role for everyone in this. So people can, you know, they can plant a garden, right, and bring the produce to their local food pantry. They can knock on a neighbor's door who might be a senior, and they may have noticed, you know, they're living a little close to the bone.

Right? They could knock on their door and say, hey, I've got extra whatever. Can you use it? Right? So there's so many ways I think for people to get involved.

Obviously, people can make financial donations. They can when they go to the to the supermarket, they can pick up extra groceries that they can donate to their local pantry. Should anyone think my piece of this is too small. I can't fix the problem. Because none of us can fix the problem unless we do it together.

Right? But together, we can. I think of all the major issues out insecurity is the one that we can collectively decide. We're just not doing this. We're gonna have a food secure community.

And that just involves everyone thinking about how can I do this? I'm having a book group meeting next week. Maybe I'll ask everyone to bring oatmeal, right, to send home to seniors. Or my kids on a soccer team, maybe at one of the practices, we decide to do a food drive. There are so many ways to integrate this into people's lives and into kids' lives.

Because I think, you know, one of the really wonderful things about kids is you can see the transformation in kids when they begin to see they have agency over their community. Like they can actually they don't think of themselves as being able to impact this big world out there. But when they see that they can, I think that that's really powerful for kids? So I think, you know, there's a role for everyone.

Martina Halloran: I love that. I think we need to start a running list of some ideas because we get we get asked all the time. Mhmm. And, you know, I have a million ideas of how people can help. And to your point, every contribution, every step towards helping is valuable.

It doesn't have to be big. And I do think often people think the problem is so big. It's just me. What can I do? But there are so many things that people can do on the daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Or even if they're offering their service, they're in service once a year, every aspect counts and matters. Food insecurity is something that we can fix. We can tackle this.

Anne Mernin: Yes.

Martina Halloran: And we just have to believe it, and we have to keep staying the course. But so much of this work that we're talking about is done by volunteers. And when you talk about contributing, when you talk about giving and what can I do, you have over 2,000 volunteers, which is incredible and massive? And these people are community giving in so many different ways. And it's at the heart of obviously what you do.

How do you I mean, I'm sure it's part of your job. How do you inspire, sustain, and how do you grow this volunteer base? And how do you reach people that you invite to say, hey, this is what our program is about. We think you would enjoy a little time here. How do you do all of that?

Anne Mernin: I think people really get a lot out of volunteering. So I think when people come to Toni's Kitchen as a volunteer and they begin to work with our guest population, they begin to see instead of sort of a stereotype of who might go to a food pantry, they begin to see families with children and they see a lot of love. And I think they find it very rewarding. There's also like a sense of community among volunteers. So volunteers invite other friends and family members into the volunteer experience because it's a rewarding experience.

And I think people just have a desire to give of themselves to their community. And some people say to me, oh, Anne, I can't cook. You know, I can't whatever, which is whatever the idea is around what Toni's Kitchen does. But I think everyone finds a home in picking up donations, doing deliveries to seniors, serving on some of our committees where we think through issues related to communication or donor engagement or volunteer experience. These are all really important parts of the organization.

So we love having a really diverse group of voices at the table. It makes us stronger and a richer organization in that way. And then we do a lot of shouting out to the community on particular needs we have. Like right now, we're looking for a part time social worker or we're looking for a dietitian. So we'll ask the community, Do you have ideas?

Do you do you have experience in this?

Martina Halloran: What's so interesting to me and you're in Montclair, New Jersey. For those that know Montclair and for the audience that doesn't, it's an extremely wealthy community. You spend a lot of time in the community. You talk to a lot of different people. The population that is at the higher end of the financial picture, how do they feel about it's a crisis within their community, whether they recognize it or not.

What how do people feel about the fact that they live in this incredibly wealthy community, but there are countless people within their community, neighbors right and left, up the street, who are in serious need?

Anne Mernin: You know, it's so interesting because I think I think people really want to address an issue once they're made aware of it. And I think suburban you know, we serve Montclair and two neighboring communities, Bloomfield and West Orange. All three are socioeconomically diverse. All three have the ability to really build some food solutions within them. Having the possibility, right, of solving food insecurity, not by making sure that you you're done, you close your doors, everyone's great, but it's by shifting our mentality to say, we can reliably provide access to appropriate food to every household in our community.

Once people realize that it's within the realm of possibility, I think it just triggers something of like, yeah, like, let's do this. And Montclair, yeah, I'm biased. I I grew up in Montclair and I love the community. I think it has a very generous and I think it has a big heart. I think it's a community with a big heart.

And so tapping into that is really is really what we wanna do. And different communities are different. We have different a different sense of ourselves in different communities. So it's about knowing your community and then knowing, you know, what's the leverage point in this community. Every community is a little bit different.

When it comes down to people want to live in a community where everyone's healthy, where kids go to school fed, where seniors can stay in their housing, you know, things like that. But it is sort of, you know, it is a beautiful community with gorgeous parks and kids on bikes and all of that. And you sort of forget, oh, like in that apartment over there, there's a senior that's been here, you know, seventy years. And the person who owns the building and lives in New York is raising the rent some ridiculous amount. Right?

How do we take care of that senior? Right? So sometimes food is a way for people to hold on to housing, hold on to some things they need to hold on to pay for medication, things like that.

Martina Halloran: Anne, this was a wonderful conversation. I thank you not only for your time, but for your work. And I think that the organization is doing incredible work, valuable work. I hope that at some point we get to have another conversation and that we are able to provide reliable food sources to everybody on an ongoing basis. I love that word reliable.

So I'm gonna leave it there because I think it's a great way to part. And I look forward to having another conversation in a very different time when we are in a reliable place.

Anne Mernin: That sounds wonderful. Thanks

Martina Halloran: Anne's so story reminds us that addressing hunger isn't just about filling plates. It's about building connections that nourish lives in lasting ways. Toni's Kitchen shows us what happens when dignity, community partnerships, and innovation work hand in hand to meet real needs. If Anne's words have inspired you, I encourage you to learn more about Toni's Kitchen and the work they're doing in Montclair, West Orange, and Bloomfield, New Jersey. You can find them at toniskitchen.org, where you'll also discover ways to get involved and support their mission.

Thank you for listening to The Giving Garden® Podcast. I hope you're leaving inspired, because even the smallest act can spark positive change. If you've enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. The Giving Garden® podcast is produced by Edwin Batista and edited by Steven West. A special thanks to Helen Polisi for her guidance and generosity.

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