WORCESTER – The Worcester Regional Food Hub honored U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern with its inaugural Food Security Champion Award on Wednesday, Oct. 16, at the Greendale People’s Church in Worcester.
The ceremony recognized McGovern’s decades-long commitment to food security initiatives and advocating for everyone to have the right to access fresh, healthy, and local food.
“It’s been really inspirational to see what this team has done,” McGovern stated during his acceptance speech. “I’m truly humbled to receive this award. I can’t think of anything more meaningful than to be associated with putting local, healthy food in the hands of people that need it.”
Over the last two years, McGovern has helped secured theft reimbursement for SNAP recipients, introduced legislation that would incentivize farmers to convert to climate friendly technology, and advocated for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to increase the quality of nutrition education at medical schools.
In 2022, McGovern secured the funding for and played an important role in the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Since being elected to congress in 1997, McGovern has advocated for increased funding for school lunch programs, emergency food systems, and other initiatives fighting food insecurity and anti-hunger programs.
In February 2023, McGovern and Republican Congressman Tracey Mann of Kansas relaunched the House Hunger Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers dedicated to ending hunger in America.
McGovern also secured $3 million in federal funding for the Worcester Regional Food Hub to develop its new location inside Union Station in Worcester.
Construction of that new $4.5 million location began in March with additional funding from the Massachusetts Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program and the City of Worcester’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
“When I look at the role of the Food Hub, it’s more than getting food from point A to point B. It’s connecting farmers to family dinner tables,” McGovern said. “You are making sure the food grown in Worcester County isn’t being shipped to faraway places, but going to plates here in the community. Filling bellies means having kids not have to worry where their next meal is coming from, and being able to focus on their education.”
When completed, the Worcester Regional Food Hub will replace its current single kitchen location with a 6,000 square foot, five kitchen, shared working site. It will feature a multipurpose event space, offices, and dedicated cold and dry food storage.
Like its current location, the Union Station location will operate as a shared commercial kitchen that incubates local food entrepreneurs and provides them with a permitted kitchen, opportunities to obtain licenses, and assistance to start and grow their businesses. It also plans to open a three-kitchen location in Fitchburg.
Founded in 2015, the Worcester Regional Food Hub partners with 61 farms and 163 distributors to bring local produce across the state. The Food Hub also partners with over 100+ School Districts across Massachusetts to bring locally grown food into school lunches.