A Pantry Partnership At Putnam

ORLEANS – “Bring your boots,” Rick Francolini told Spencer Knowles when he invited Knowles to take a tour of the farming plots at Putnam Farm in the fall of 2023.

 Francolini, an Orleans resident, gave Knowles the lay of the land, showing him how growers had helped reinvigorate the long-dormant parcel and explaining their vision for the future. Knowles, who is president of Seaside Cannabis Co. on Lots Hollow Road, said he was immediately sold.

 “I just put it in the back of my head that ‘Someday, not today, there might be something interesting that we could do,’” he said.

 On the strength of that initial meeting, Seaside has since partnered with select growers at the farm to launch the Putnam Pantry Project. Through the effort, Seaside, which opened its doors as Orleans’ first licensed retail marijuana business at the end of 2023, pays for produce harvested at the farm for donation to two sites, including the Lower Cape Outreach Council’s pantry in Orleans.

 “If it can help families that need a little extra support, I think that’s a worthwhile pursuit,” said Danny Ho of Wellfleet, a Putnam grower participating in the pantry project.

 As a condition of its license with the Cannabis Control Commission, Seaside is required to prepare a “positive impact plan” that is subject to review by the commission annually. The plan lays out the business’ efforts to help support what the commission calls “areas of disproportionate impact” (ADI), communities that have been adversely impacted by the state’s past prohibition of retail marijuana sales. 

 Part of Seaside’s plan includes an annual financial donation to support a local ADI. But the nearest community that meets the state’s criteria is over the bridge in Wareham. No community on Cape Cod meets the standards for an ADI, Francolini said.

 “Having had a relationship with me and knowing I was involved with Putnam, they came to me and said ‘Hey, we want to support the local economy and also feed people,’” he said. “We’re thinking if we gave you some money, could you pull together a group of Putnam growers, and we’ll pay them to grow food to donate to the pantry?’”

 Last summer, Seaside collaborated with select Putnam growers on a pilot initiative that generated a total of 500 pounds of organic produce. The bulk of the produce, about 400 pounds, was donated to Damien’s Place Food Pantry in Wareham, satisfying Seaside’s commitment to its impact plan. The remaining 100 pounds was donated to the council.

 “It was wonderful,” said the council’s CEO, Katie Wibby. “It was very successful. Our pantry clients are so grateful for fresh produce. It’s always the most popular item that we can carry, so we can never have enough of it.”

 While the council receives the bulk of its food for its nine regional pantries through the Greater Boston Food Bank, Wibby said having additional avenues to receive food is critical, especially as food insecurity continues to be a growing concern in the region.

 “Sourcing locally is the gold standard,” Wibby said. “We know where it’s coming from. We know it’s supporting our local community, that the money is going back into the local economy but that it’s also supporting everybody else in the local community that needs it. At a time where food insecurity is so high in our area, anywhere we can find additional food sources outside of the Greater Boston Food Bank is a win for us.”

 Alex Bates, another Putnam grower who also chairs the agricultural advisory council in Orleans, grew onions and potatoes on his plot. Tomatoes, root vegetables and greens were also in demand by the pantries, he said.

 “We were paid $4 per pound, which personally I thought was very generous and a fair price for what we were providing,” he said of the pilot campaign.

 For Ho, who is entering his second season as a grower at Putnam, the project will not only keep more locally grown food on the Lower and Outer Cape, it will make better, more nutritious food available to those who need it.

 “And I think that leads to better health outcomes,” he said. “That’s kind of what I care about, people not having to deal with chronic disease. I think that our food system is essentially broken, and this is at least a step in the right direction.”

 On the strength of last summer’s successful pilot, Seaside is partnering this year with two other entities, Suncrafted Cannabis of Middleborough and Coast Cannabis Co. of Wareham, to further the pantry project. Knowles said the goal is to donate between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds of food between the Wareham and Orleans pantries. 

 Seaside this year will pay the council to oversee the project’s operations, Wibby said. She said the council already has the staff and resources in place to administer the program, including volunteers to help receive food from the growers and a bookkeeper who can pay them directly at drop off.

 There are no firm guidelines as to how much Seaside is required to donate to Wareham to satisfy its obligations to the state commission, Knowles said. Seaside has filed a petition to the commission seeking a waiver allowing it to keep more of the donated produce in Orleans.

 “Because they don’t give you clear expectations except for where the areas of disproportionate impact are,” Knowles said. “That’s it. That’s the only clear expectation. How much you do, what you do and how they receive and decide if it’s enough, quote unquote, is completely arbitrary.”

On Jan. 21, the select board unanimously voted in support of sending a letter of support to the commission for Seaside’s waiver.

 “Orleans, as we know, isn’t always considered a community in need,” Michael Herman of the select board told his fellow board members in discussion of the letter. 

 The goal is to start the project back up in June, when construction on a new agricultural barn at Putnam is expected to be completed. The 720-square-foot barn, which was funded in part through a food security infrastructure grant from the state Department of Agricultural Resources, will include space for refrigerating food and washing produce before it goes to market. The barn also will include outdoor space for educational programming. 

Knowles said the barn is just another way of growing the pantry project into an effort that can be sustainable in the long term.

“That’s the thing that we always think about, ‘Is it scaleable?’ If the answer is ‘yes’, it gets more exciting because that means you can literally have more of an impact,” he said.

Knowles said it’s possible that the commission won’t respond to Seaside’s petition in time for the summer. But he said the company is committed to providing the additional quantities of produce “no matter what,” even if it remains to be determined how much will stay in Orleans.

“Our goal is to give as much to Lower Cape Outreach as we can,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bates said this year’s participating Putnam growers held a meeting ahead of the coming season to figure out who will grow what in support of the project. That additional planning should help growers meet the project’s poundage goal this year, he said. He added that there will be seven growers this season, up from five last year.

“The plots are quite substantial in size,” he said. “I’m always amazed at how much you can grow on that space. So I think amongst seven plots, I think that’s a realistic goal to aim for.”

Lower Cape Outreach Council has launched a website in support of the project where private donors can contribute to the effort. Through the site, more than $1,800 in private donations had been collected as of Tuesday morning toward the council’s $10,000 goal.

Local officials have long said that properly addressing the issue of food insecurity requires a community effort. For Wibby, the pantry project could serve as a model for how to address the problem collaboratively.

 “I think it’s going to take the community coming together, and I think this is a perfect example of how that can work efficiently,” she said.

 For more information on the Putnam Pantry Project, visit secure.givelively.org/donate/lower-cape-outreach-council-inc/putnam-pantry-project.