In view of rising costs for life’s necessities, especially for older residents or families with children, local food pantries stand ready to help.
Volunteers are friends and neighbors who may benefit from the existence of the pantry or they may be people who simply want to lend a hand by helping their communities.
Groceries and fresh produce can be just out of reach for families on a budget that struggles to stretch far enough. It might not be all the time, but sometimes a bit of local assistance can make a big difference.
Periodically, The Millerton News looks in on the area food bank programs and updates readers on availability, location, hours and other details. While we try to be accurate at the outset, sometimes hours might change, so it is best to call ahead before visiting.
Understand that these locations are staffed by volunteers who want nothing more than to welcome their neighbors with a warm smile and good wishes. Volunteers are always needed to keep the pantries up and running smoothly. Donations of a few hours of time, groceries and funds are always welcome.
Millerton/North East
Location: North East Community Center (NECC), 51 South Center St. Phone: 518-789-4259, ext. 124. Email: foodaccess@neccmillerton.org. Hours: Every Wednesday, 3-6 p.m. and Thursday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
The NECC Food and Supply Pantry offers groceries and household supplies to local residents prioritizing nutrition. Member: Regional Food Bank of New York. Partnered with Glynwood Foundation’s Food Sovereignty Fund and its partnership with Rock Steady Farm and Chaseholm Farm to offer fresh vegetables, grass-fed yogurt and beef. Volunteers needed: Yes. Donations needed: Yes. More information: www.neccmillerton.org
Location: NorthEast-Millerton Library — two programs. The Little Library Pantry at Veterans Park, at the intersection of Main Street and Dutchess Avenue. Hours 24/7. Take what you need, leave what you can. Also, the Little Free Grocery at the Library, 75 Main St. Phone: 518-789-3340 or submit an order at www.nemillertonlibrary.org for pickup at the library. Residency requirements: No. Volunteers needed: No. Donations needed: Yes, online or to P.O. Box 786, Millerton, NY 12546.
Amenia
Location: Sun River Health, 3360 Route 343. Phone: 845-476-9343. Dutchess County Outreach Mobile Food Pantry. Hours: Every Wednesday, 2-5 p.m. Supported by a grant from Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York and additional support from Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. Residency requirements: No. Volunteers needed: No. Donations needed: No.
Location: Vine and Branches. Immaculate Conception-St. Anthony’s Parish Catholic Church, 11 Lavelle Road. Phone: 845-373-8193. Nonperishable food items. Hours: Third Saturday of each month, 10-10:30 a.m. Residency requirements: No. Volunteers needed: No. Donations needed: Yes.
Amenia Union
Location: The Food of Life/Comida de Vida Food Pantry. St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 40 Leedsville Road. Phone: 845-373-9161. Emphasis on fresh produce and nutritious foods, organic, locally sourced. Bilingual support staff/volunteers. Hours: Fridays, 2-5 p.m. Residency requirements: No. Volunteers needed: Yes. Go to www.stthomasamenia.com to sign up to volunteer. Donations: Yes. For information, email: contactus@stthomasamenia.com
Ancramdale
Location: Neighbors Helping Neighbors Association at the Presbyterian Church Hall, at the intersection of routes 8 and 82. Phone: Jack Lindsey, 518-329-7306 or Hila Richardson, 917-414-8270. Hours: Mondays, 5-6 p.m. Call for an appointment. Residency requirements: Ancram Township. Volunteers needed: No. Donations: Yes.
Copake/Hillsdale
Location: Roe Jan Food Pantry, 2684 State Route 23, Hillsdale. Phone: Betty White, 518-441-2789. Hours: Fridays, 10 a.m.-noon. Emergencies: any time. Residency requirements: Taconic Hills School District, ID suggested. Volunteers needed: Yes. Donations: Yes, at IGA Market, 2628 Route 23, Hillsdale, or to P.O. Box 475, Hillsdale, NY 12529.
Pine Plains
Location: United Methodist Church, 3023 Church St., P.O. Box 511, Pine Plains 12567. Phone: 518-398-7692. Hours: Second Saturday of the month, 10 a.m.-noon. Residency requirements: Pine Plains Central School District, with proof of residency. Volunteers needed: No. Donations: Monetary, food and toiletries. For information, go to www.pineplainsepiscopal.org
Location: Willow Roots Food Pantry, 7730 South Main St. Hours: first and third Saturday of each month, 10-11 a.m. Thrift Store, same hours. The Giving Box at the Pine Plains Library has drinks, snacks and food items. Phone: 518-751-0164. Residency requirements: Pine Plains Central School District. Volunteers needed: Yes. Donations: Yes, send to office at 23 North Main St., or go to www.willowroots.org
Millbrook
Location: Food for Folks, Lyall Memorial Federated Church, 30 Maple Ave. Phone: Emergency Pantry, 845-242-6508 for an eligibility appointment. Meals on Wheels, 845-677-4235, leave a message. First Harvest Pantry, May through October, Tuesdays, 8-10 a.m., until supplies run out. Fresh produce from Stonewood Farm.
Dover
Location: Center of Compassion Food Pantry, 52 Mill St. Phone: 845-877-9076. Assistance available by appointment, Monday through Friday. Offers food items and household supplies. Volunteers needed: Yes. Donations needed: Yes. Supported by a grant from the Regional Food Bank of the Hudson Valley.
Lakeville, Connecticut
Location: Corner Food Pantry, 80 Sharon Road. Phone: 860-435-9886. Hours: Distribution is on Friday from 3 to 4:30 p.m., and on Saturday from 9 to 10 a.m. Residency requirements: No. Volunteers needed: Yes, from both New York and Connecticut. Go to www.thecornerfoodpantry.org/get-involved to donate or volunteer or call the pantry and leave a name and phone number. Regular drop-off for donations is Friday, 9-10 a.m., but there is a container in the garage.
The refrigeration van at Sun River Health offices in Amenia serves the community as part of the Dutchess County Mobile Food Pantry program.Leila Hawken
Jim Archer of Elk Ravine Farm takes a seat on Billy the water buffalo on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
Archer bought the farm 30 years ago. He was living in Katonah, New York — where he grew up — and finding success as a contractor when he decided he wanted plenty of land in the country.
He bought the 90-acre property and spent 10 years prepping and building before he could move onto the farm. Then the real work could begin.
Archer has a passion for environmentalism and conservation that runs deep. His farm is under conservation easement with the Dutchess Land Conservancy, and the main goal of his operation is to raise livestock to aid in maintaining endangered habitats.
Archer raises Scottish Highlands cattle and Southeast Asian water buffalo because of their affinity for rugged terrain and dense, unappetizing foliage. They serve as all-natural weed-eaters, Archer said, going into habitats and eating plants that more typical livestock would avoid.
“They’re replacing an herbivore that has become extinct through millennia,” Archer said.
This strategy centers natural habitat management strategies rather than herbicides that could leach into water tables, potentially causing more harm to critters than the good that would come from removing invasive plants.
The water buffalo are especially fond of an invasive called phragmites — also known as common reed. These non-native plants form dense clods that choke out native species, according to the New York Invasive Species Information website, eventually killing all diversity in a wetland.
“Scottish highlanders don’t want to go where the footing is bad,” Archer said. “So I asked if we could proceed with Southeast Asian water buffalo and we’ve been working with them for about two years now.”
The operation is under expansion with 13 water buffalo and between 35 and 40 highlands cattle.
Archer’s environmental work is expensive, though, and he refuses to accept donations or even volunteer labor to help him with his operation. Instead, he sells educational tours of his Amenia farm to fund the conservation efforts. “I have to earn what I get,” Archer said.
Jim Archer keeps sheep, goats, pigs, emus, horses and a variety of fowl on his farm on Smithfield Valley Road in Amenia.
Archer has amassed a menagerie of animals at his 90-acre farm — all raised from adolescence by him and his fiancee — including pigs, sheep, highlands cattle, water buffalo, emus, goats, pheasants, horses, pigeons, ducks and peafowl.
Tourists start by meeting the highlands cattle, the animal that generally draws a group to the farm, Archer said. “Everybody wants to pet a fluffy cow.”
Archer’s tours put visitors in direct contact with nearly every animal on his farm, except for the horses. Those are just for pulling Archer’s restored stage coaches, including a re-creation horse-drawn ambulance — a hobby for him and his fiancée.
The experience can be overwhelming for some. “I get a lot of people that cry,” Archer said, because many of his visitors are urban or suburbanites with limited experience with animals, and the interactions can be moving.
“Somebody was suffering a loss of their partner,” Archer said. “They came here to see the animals to help through their grieving process. Billy, the water buffalo, was laying down so she sat down and he put his head in her lap. The whole time we were there — 30, 45 minutes — she was just there bonding with him.”
“Emus are dinosaurs,” Jim Archer said as he exposed the claw located on his emu’s wing.Nathan Miller
Nathan Miller
The most divisive animals on the property are the emus. Archer has five of them that live in an enclosure with some goats. The emus are curious and friendly, but they have a funny way of showing it. The birds have to explore things using beaks, leading to a lot of nibbling and pecking as visitors stand in the pen with them. Some people, understandably, find that a little annoying, Archer said.
Interested visitors can book tours through Archer’s website, www.elkravinefarm.com, or by texting 914-262-4737. A two-hour tour of the farm for a group of four people costs $250. An appointment is required to visit the farm.
The Haystack Book Festival, a program of the Norfolk Hub, brings renowned writers and thinkers to Norfolk for conversation. Celebrating its fifth season this fall, the festival will gather 18 writers for discussions at the Norfolk Library on Sept. 20 and Oct. 3 through 5.
Jerome A. Cohen, author of the memoir “Eastward, Westward: A Lifein Law.”Haystack Book Festival
For example, “Never Take the Rule of Law for Granted: China and the Dissident,” will be held Saturday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m. at the Norfolk Library. It brings together Jerome A. Cohen, author of “Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law,” and Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong King’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic” in dialogue with journalist Richard Hornik to discuss the rule of law and China.
The Council on Foreign Relations stated, “Few Americans have done more than Jerome A. Cohen to advance the rule of law in East Asia. He established the study of Chinese law in the United States. An advocate for human rights, Cohen has been a scholar, teacher, lawyer, and activist for sixty years.”
Cohen, a professor at New York University School of Law and director of its U.S.-Asia Law Institute, revealed his long view on China: “We are now witnessing another extreme in the pendulum’s swing toward repression. Xi Jinping is likely to outlive me but ‘no life lives forever.’ There will eventually be another profound reaction to the current totalitarian era.”
Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.”Haystack Book Festival
In “The Troublemaker,” Clifford chronicles Lai’s life from child refugee to pro-democracy billionaire to his current imprisonment by the Chinese Communist Party. Clifford is president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, a Walter Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and holds a PhD in history from the University of Hong Kong. He was the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post and The Standard (Hong Kong and Seoul).
Journalist Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu.Haystack Book Festival
Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center, will moderate the discussion. Hornik is the former executive editor of AsiaWeek, news service director of Time magazine, and former Time bureau chief in Warsaw, Boston, Beijing and Hong Kong.
Betsy Lerner, author of “Shred Sisters,” is giving the 2025 Brendan Gill lecture at the Haystack Book Festival.Haystack Book Festival
The Brendan Gill Lecture is a highlight of the festival honoring longtime Norfolk resident Brendan Gill, who died in1997. Gill wrote for The New Yorker magazine for fifty years. Betsy Lerner, New York Times-recognized author of “Shred Sisters,” will deliver this year’s lecture on Friday, Oct. 3, at 6 p.m. at the Norfolk Library.
Visit haystackbookfestival.org to register. Admission is free.
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