Teen food pantry tackles food insecurity

This story by Sophia Keshmiri was first published in the Addison Independent on Oct. 22, 2026.

VERGENNES — Just under a year since Martha DeGraaf and her Commodore Club participants launched a teen food pantry, what was intended to be a supplement for kids in the after-school program has grown into a resource run by those very students for their peers throughout the community. 

As the cost of food and other basic needs rises, wages fail to keep up with inflation, summer food aid benefits end, changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program continue to strain families and states and just over a year since President Donald Trump’s Department of Agriculture ceased an annual decades-old food insecurity survey, the issue is clear to see at the year-old food shelf. 

DeGraaf, who has spent years in the education and childcare sector — most recently heading the Vergennes Recreation Department — and is a lifelong Vermonter, said she hasn’t witnessed food insecurity at this scale in her decades-long career. 

The 20-plus kids, in grades six through 12, who participate in the free department-run after-school program — plus any others who need something — clean out the 20 Armory Lane shelves and fridge, stocked with meals, snacks, fresh fruit and hygiene products. 

“It was a really big eye-opener to me — really big eye-opener to me,” DeGraaf emphasized. 

“I really thought, ‘Wow, where have I been?’ And then I wonder also, the struggles may not have been so much when I was growing up, or I just wasn’t aware of them, but I really realize it now. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. A child, a teen, or a youth in that environment may just be hungry.” 

While food insecurity is an ever-present problem, it wasn’t just flying under DeGraaf’s radar all these years — the demand for food assistance is growing in real time, as evidenced by data from the Vermont Foodbank. 

Across the organization’s roughly 215 network shelves and meal sites — of which there are 10 in Addison County — traffic in the last year has gone up roughly 30%, according to spokesperson Carrie Stahler.

“That is a steep increase in need for food access and support,” she said. “That is a trend we do not see changing, unfortunately, in this time of high costs, high inflation, and reductions in federal benefits like SNAP/3SquaresVT and other key programs to help people meet their basic needs.” 

She also commended the Commodore Club effort to help participants. 

“Honestly, it is a complicated time for families. With costs going up for everything, grocery budgets are often the only place where a family can find a way to supplement,” she said.

“You can’t stop paying rent or putting gas in the car to get to work or school, but you can use a food pantry or food shelf to get supplemental food when you need it, and a lot more families are having to make that choice.” 

Project genesis

The teen food pantry got its start immediately after DeGraaf was approached by a child stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

Before heading into a Commodore Club business meeting one night last fall, she was approached by one of her program participants. Described by DeGraaf as riddled with guilt, the child confessed he had taken a sleeve of ramen noodles from the kitchen on site. 

“He said, ‘I really wanted to bring it home and share it with my family,’” DeGraaf recalled. “I was devastated for him. … I just was thinking how that child felt, and my heart was broken.”

DeGraaf sent him home with the food, a compassionate reprimand and the promise that the following day they’d tackle a bigger issue — “figure out some sort of plan as to how to … find out things that maybe some people would need,” she told him. 

DeGraaf went into her meeting, but her mind was still on that interaction. Rather than push it aside, she brought up what had just happened, which led another attendee to suggest a teen food pantry. She and her Commodore Club participants got to work the following day. 

“The focus wasn’t a teen food pantry for the community. It really was a teen food pantry, sort of for the kids that were attending the club,” DeGraaf said. 

“It started to take off right away and evolved into something more than I had imagined, but manageable.”

What started as an empty bookshelf and a wish list — heavy in hygiene products — became a way to fill a gap in the community. 

An initial Front Porch Forum post from DeGraaf asking the public for donations made an impression, which inspired Commodore Club participants to expand the pantry’s capacity. 

In the days that followed, the kids added more shelves and were eager to keep track of inventory and donors. 

“The kids really started to take ownership of it,” DeGraaf said. “It really became a kid-led program.”

Just two and a half weeks after going public with the concept, DeGraaf took to Front Porch Forum again, but to share a statistic. 

“Because of you, since Sunday, 52 teens have been able to shop in our pantry,” DeGraaf wrote on Nov. 28. 

“Because of all of you, 52 teens will not go hungry for the remainder of the Thanksgiving break.” 

High demand

The teen food pantry had its shelves stocked for the first time just as Trump was threatening to — and in some cases did — withhold SNAP benefits amid last fall’s record-breaking government shutdown. At the same time, his administration’s sweeping tariffs were putting pressure on prices. 

Since then, grocery store aisles, and the economy generally, have only gotten gloomier, especially for those on the margins. 

More SNAP changes initiated by the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” signed in July 2025, went into effect earlier this month; Trump’s trade war with Canada has jeopardized the Green Mountain State’s most prominent international trade partner; and the ongoing Iran war has caused gas and diesel prices to spike and stay elevated. 

Rising diesel prices have put even more pressure on the cost of necessities such as food because transporting and fueling farm machinery is pricier for producers. 

“People are having to choose — are we going to put gas in our car? Or are we going to put food on our table? Now those are tough choices to make,” DeGraaf said. “Are we going to pay for fuel, or are we going to pay for toiletries?” 

In early March, just as some of the Big Beautiful Bill’s SNAP eligibility changes went into effect, DeGraaf took to Front Porch Forum and reported a marked increase in traffic at the teen food pantry and wrote that “we are in need of a healthy restock to keep supporting the teens who rely on it.” 

At the start of the school year, DeGraaf was again struck by the quantity of food and other items the pantry was going through. 

“With school back in session, the Teen Food Pantry at 20 Armory Lane in Vergennes is getting visits every day, and our back stock has dwindled much faster than we expected,” she wrote on Sept. 8. 

While DeGraaf wonders if the trend she’s observed has to do with her own awareness or if it’s the economic context, and she thinks “it’s a mixture of both,” the cost of food is glaring. 

“I’m leaning towards the way the food prices have gone,” she said. “I’m experiencing that shock at the store myself.”

As food prices rise, not as many Vermonters are receiving assistance, according to data from the Public Assets Institute. 

SNAP benefits ceased for roughly 5,332 Vermonters — over a third of whom are children — from summer 2025 to summer 2026. In Addison County, the number of SNAP recipients dropped 7%, or by 179 people, in that time. Just over 60 of those recipients were children.

“We know that when families no longer get federal benefits to support grocery purchases, they often have very few other resources and turn to food shelves to help put food on the table,” the Vermont Foodbank spokesperson said. 

“We and our partners hear from neighbors that food they buy has become more expensive while the amount they have to spend on food has not kept up.” 

The organization is also repeatedly being told by those it serves that fuel prices are of big concern. 

“This year is especially difficult because of the high cost of heating fuels. This is a concern for neighbors, and also for the organizations serving them as their costs go up, making it more difficult to continue to serve the increasing needs of households,” she said.

While the Commodore Club teen food pantry is helping those who are facing financial stress, the pantry — which DeGraaf emphasized is nonjudgmental, a key tenet of the program that she said makes it a success — is available to any kid for any reason. 

“There’s all the different needs from all the different walks of life,” she said. 

DeGraaf doesn’t turn away a teen who might have forgotten a stick of deodorant, for example. 

She said she’s used to hearing kids say they have to “fend for themselves” for meals, whether that’s because their parents are busy with work or shepherding a younger sibling to activities. 

“That’s a quote I hear a lot,” DeGraaf said. “‘Oh, Mom said I can fend for myself for dinner, so that’s why I’m here.’”

For DeGraaf, this trend has been another eye-opener. 

“What I didn’t anticipate was it doesn’t matter if you have food stamps or not,” DeGraaf said.

“It doesn’t matter if your parents can eat out six times a week. It doesn’t matter. Some of these kids are just plain hungry, and they need to be fed.” 

Not a junk food pantry

When DeGraaf and the Commodore Club participants were getting the food pantry organized, and the kids were scouring the building for useful infrastructure, they claimed an unused refrigerator they felt would best serve the food pantry and moved it to the space.

“I turned around, and there are these kids at this refrigerator in the open space of the club,” DeGraaf recalled with a slight chuckle. 

The pantry is going beyond making sure stomachs are full; it’s making sure they’re full of nutritious food, some of which requires a fridge and which DeGraaf said her students crave. 

“It’s not a junk food pantry, and that’s really what the kids — they feel … they’re associated with not having any money and eating junk. They’ll tell you that,” DeGraaf said.

“They really do long for the crisp fruits. The yogurts, the vegetables and things like that.” 

It’s a similar story when it comes to hygiene products. DeGraaf said one of the most highly sought items is deodorant, specifically Old Spice. 

“Biggest request that I have. I just got it again yesterday. Old Spice deodorant and body wash.”

Hearing the request for the first time sticks with DeGraaf. 

“They didn’t want the generic (brand) all the time. They want Old Spice,” she said. “They want to smell like their peers or the people they look up to.” 

Name brand toothpaste is another hot commodity. “Colgate or Crest, and they get so excited, and it’s great,” DeGraaf said. 

Another big hit among the kids is when donations allow them to make a meal. One that came to DeGraaf’s mind was a chicken and dumplings kit that somebody donated, complete with the pan, the needed ingredients and instructions. 

Not unlike the very first student she had wanting to take home ramen for his family, the kids have their loved ones at heart when opportunities such as this one arise.

“Some of the kids that took it or that got it and brought it home were so thrilled that they made this chicken and biscuits for their whole family,” DeGraaf said. 

“The kids really — I really feel the self-satisfaction when they do something for others.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Teen food pantry tackles food insecurity.

Courtesy of VT Digger