Renée Young, community impact manager for United Way of Greater Waterbury, recently led a discussion panel focused on food insecurity, featuring insights from these valuable community partners:

Brittney Cavaliere, program manager for the Institute for Hunger Research & Solutions as Connecticut Foodshare, will define food insecurity and the charitable food system before sharing data points to include 10 towns served by our United Way: Bethlehem, Cheshire, Middlebury, Prospect, Southbury, Thomaston, Waterbury, Watertown, Wolcott, and Woodbury. Brittney will also address the driving forces behind an increased demand and challenges to ensuring reliable access to healthy food: COVID-19, rising costs due to inflation, and gaps in availability due to supply chain issues. Brittney will further discuss the work of Connecticut Foodshare and the importance of collaborating with community partners like the United Way of Greater Waterbury.

Jered Bruzas, director of operations for St. Vincent DePaul Mission of Waterbury, Inc. As someone who runs one of the largest food pantries in our area, Jered will speak to changes he has seen among individuals and families served by the Mission, both prior to the pandemic and now, ongoing needs, and how the Mission is expanding its food pantry to meet demand.

Lauren Hassan, registered dietician for Shop Rite of Waterbury, will share the importance of access to nutritious food, her experiences in presenting food programs for children in our community, how programs benefit when people shop through the Healthy Food Initiative, and how ShopRite of Waterbury is making it easy for everyone to help.