Who we are, and how we came to understand the need...

In March of 2020, Jonathan and Lisa Burr, owners of The Woods Lodge - an events and accommodations facility located in Northfield, Vermont that offers meeting and event space, catering and bar services - saw an opportunity to fill a need in the community when their business was forced to shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With restaurants, bars and catering facilities closed by the Governor’s mandate, and grocery-shopping becoming more difficult, there arose a need for more options for consumers to obtain food, so The Woods Lodge started offering a weekly menu of prepared meals that folks could order and pay for online, for pick-up or delivery. 

Jonathan and the Burr’s children, Benjamin and Abigail, were speaking one day about how this service could be transformed so that even those in the community who needed it, but could not afford it, could also be served. Together, the family resolved to find a way to provide prepared meals to less fortunate Vermonters, as well.

They determined that partnering with CERV (Community Emergency Relief Volunteers) was a great option to reach the most people in need in their community. The first donation of 40 prepared meals was well received and, in fact, they were all handed out in the first two hours of that Saturday’s drive-thru pickup – over 50 households availed themselves of the program. It was immediately evident that there was more of a need than they had thought and, in order to continue weekly, and increase the number of donated meals, the Burr family would need some help.

In the hopes that their current customers would be willing to help feed their neighbors, they added a donation option on the online ordering page for the weekly menu, and sent it out with the marketing email and social media posts. The response was instantaneous and overwhelming: within the first few hours, the donations started coming in. By the end of the first few days, and with the help of a few large donations and many smaller ones, they had enough funding to allow the newly-formed “Feed-A-Friend” initiative to continue. These donations from members of the local community helped to cover the cost of provisions and supplies.

Every Friday, the Burr family gathered in the kitchen at The Woods Lodge to cook and assemble individually packaged and labeled meals. The meals were then delivered on Saturday morning to CERV, to be handed out by the volunteers during the weekly drive-thru pickup at the Food Shelf. Over the course of the next 10 weeks, donations kept coming in, and the Burrs were able to increase the number of weekly meals to 80, and later to 100, throughout the Spring and Summer of 2020. Those “heat-and-eat” prepared meals provided by The Woods Lodge, through its Feed-A-Friend initiative, were a great new addition, making it easier for struggling families to enjoy a home-cooked meal.

Our involvement in Vermont Everyone/Emergenvy Eats...

In mid-July 2020, a new program was in the works, which aligned with the program they had developed, but which would, in addition, provide a stipend for the restaurants and caterers who were also producing meals for the community. This is what became the Vermont Everyone Eats (VEE) program.

The Woods Lodge began working with VEE in September of 2020, until that program ended on March 31, 2023, and then stepped up again during the flooding in July and August of 2023.

That's where Feed Every Need comes in...

It became very apparent during 2023, as most of the emergency (both federal and state) funding for Vermont Everyone/Emergency Eats was used up, the problem of food insecurty and the over-arching hunger crisis would continue and likely worsen. It was also evident that prepared meals were a valuable addition to the support system, and that, although much needed and appreciated, they were not readily available to most Vermonters.

Because preparing food for those in need had become a regular and rewarding experience for them, Jonathan and Lisa set out to find a way to continue where VEE left off. The goal: develop a sustainable organization, funded by donations and grants, which could consistently and permanently, offer lovingly prepared, hearty, well rounded meals delivered to organizations who could then distribute them to community members in need.

Feed Every Need was established in 2023 as a 501(c)3 organization, to do just that.