Photos by Mary O’Keeffe
Walking into the sizable kitchen at Family Table Collaborative (FTC) at the former Riverway Restaurant in South Yarmouth is like walking into any other commercial kitchen – in a way. The aroma of a southern gravy simmering away on the stove, and the sounds of chefs calling out instructions to one another could be found in the back of the house of any Cape Cod restaurant. This staff, however, has a decidedly different look than your typical kitchen crew. Team members’ age ranges span decades, as high school culinary students work alongside retirees as they peel, chop, slice and dice the ingredients for hundreds of future meals. These meals could be given away at a public distribution in Eastham or Hyannis, or delivered to area service organizations such as local councils on aging and veterans’ services. Perhaps the food will be on the concession menu at the next Cape Symphony concert, or other private catering events.
Jeni Wheeler and Harry Henry established FTC during the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic. Longtime volunteer Dianne Mahoney recalls asking Jeni what they were going to do when the world shut down. “Jeni said to me, ‘We’re going to feed people.’ And we did,” Mahoney remembers. Their mission continues as the need for fresh, healthy food only grows. According to the Cape Cod Commission, the Cape’s median income level is lower than that of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, while our cost of living here is higher. That’s an equation that results in food insecurity for many Cape Codders. Since FTC’s inception, staff and volunteers have produced well over a quarter of a million meals and saved over 400,000 pounds of produce from entering the waste stream.
“Economics is just one driver,” says Wheeler of the numerous reasons that bring people to pick up meals at a distribution site. “People come for family members or neighbors who might have mobility issues,” she explains. Many of us have two or more jobs to be able to call Cape Cod home. What often gets pushed aside as you scramble from one job to the next? A proper, nutritious meal. Grabbing something on the go often means grabbing pre-packaged, highly processed food that lacks in nutritional value. Whether a temporary setback or longer term, the face of food insecurity can look very similar to the one staring back at you through a mirror.
With the growing need has come a growing outpouring of support. FTC has one of the largest volunteer staffs on the Cape. At present, the list totals over 560 people. “Harry (Henry) is really good about keeping an accurate count because people drop off over time,” she points out. “At one point, we were up over 900 people.” The reasons they’ve come to help are as unique as the volunteers themselves. Some began volunteering after receiving meals at a public distribution.
Paula Perrone shares the story of how she came to FTC. “I’m here because Jeni, during the pandemic, she was actually doing the food distributions, and I went to pick up a meal for a friend who couldn’t get out. I pulled up and Jeni asked, ‘how many meals?’ I said, ‘two’, and she said, ‘Oh, I hope you and your partner like them!’ I said, ‘Oh, they’re not for me, they’re for a friend who couldn’t get out. I don’t need them.’ Then she says, ‘Well, you’re helping your friend. What are you doing for dinner?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ll find something at home.’ She said, ‘Wait!’ and she comes running back and she handed me a meal. I pulled away and started crying. So, that’s when I started.”
Some of the kitchen team are starting young. Chef Matt Tropeano, culinary instructor at Cape Cod Tech in Harwich, guides students Landon O’Neill, McKenzie Sylvia, and Kristlee Whitehead as they gain real-world experience working in a commercial kitchen. O’Neill and Sylvia are working 30 hours a week at FTC as part of the Co-op program at Cape Cod Tech. Still younger, Monomoy School’s eighth graders help every Thursday morning. “I love when the kids come in,” Mahoney says. “Some come in dragging their feet. You know, as kids can be,” she laughs. “But by the end of their time here, they admit they had fun.”
Some on the staff at FTC are on the second act of their careers. “It started with baking cookies for the (Cape) symphony because we weren’t making them in house at the time,” says lead baker Jenny Burkhardt. She took on the role in November but had been volunteering for four years, baking for the past two. Burkhardt was previously a marine biologist for The Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown for fifteen years, studying water quality monitoring. “At first, it was small desserts for events, then bigger cakes and more and more desserts. I was lucky that Jeni was able to find a position for me here. I do the baking, and I help run the (catering) events the day of the event,” she explains.
For Lee Mitchell, newly retired after working for forty years with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, there are many pluses to volunteering at FTC. “I just love working with all these people,” she enthuses. “And I love learning new skills. Chef Nick just showed us a better way to cut peppers.” And her least favorite part? “The onions,” she laughs as she stands over a pile of cut onions with tear-filled eyes. Chopping alongside Mitchell is Monica Campobello. “It’s amazing to watch what the chefs do with all the food,” she gushes.
All the food. “The United States makes up 5% of the world’s population, but we produce 25% of the food waste,” Wheeler articulates. Unsold surplus food from grocery stores and markets arrives daily with the chief supplier being Whole Foods in Hyannis. “We’re getting more from other markets as they become aware of us, but Whole Foods is amazing. They donate daily to the food pantries as well as us,” Wheeler says. “What people need to realize is this is not waste that we’re working with. It’s surplus food,” Wheeler explains. “It’s perfectly good food. If the surplus food doesn’t get to a place like us and get used, then it becomes waste.”
Turning the surplus into meals is a creative challenge for the chefs of FTC. “It’s like an episode of Chopped every day,” Chef Nick Caplice says. There is no set schedule to what comes through the door, and the clock is ticking to find a use for it before the food spoils. “Sometimes, we’d get three cases of avocados, and they need to be used today. What do we do with it? It’s a challenge, but you get to be creative,” he continues. Caplice is one of FTC’s new hires. After spending twenty years working in kitchens from fine dining to what he describes as “bars who think they’re a restaurant and all they do is fry up frozen items,” Caplice needed a change. “I got tired of cooking food that either I couldn’t afford or wouldn’t want to eat.” He also has experience working in organizations akin to FTC. “I’ve worked in places like this before, and you’d get food. Not necessarily good food. Not necessarily healthy food. Here, we’re doing both. We’re saving food that otherwise would go to waste, and we’re turning it into healthy meals.”
On this day, the task at hand was to save the perishable produce that has arrived. Caplice explains, “Tomorrow is a big distribution day where we get four hundred-plus meals into the community. Yesterday we had 16 volunteers, so we were able to produce a lot of food for Thursday’s distribution. Today we’re organizing it, and tomorrow we’ll package it. Today’s prep work is saving other food. I’m going to make a ton of vegetable sauce, cook it down and freeze it just to have it. There’s always work to do.”
For Caplice, the teaching experience has gone both ways. Having just demonstrated the proper way to cut a pepper to Mitchell and Campobello (for his soon-to-be-made sauce), he admits that he has learned patience. “I was trained by chefs who were like, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ for 12 hours straight, and you don’t get a break. These are people who are here for three hours, and they’re going to work leisurely, have a good time, have a conversation, and make something nice for their community,” he explains.
Packaging and distribution day arrives, and so too does the team of volunteers to fill, label, and box up this week’s dinners to fill orders people have submitted. Labels denoting any possible allergy triggers, and vegan and vegetarian needs are affixed to make it possible for all to enjoy these healthy meals. Distrubution co-leader Kathy Kurniawan demonstrates the proper amounts of mashed potatoes, roasted pork loin with southern thyme gravy made yesterday by chef Eric LaBonte, and roasted carrots for each box. “Remember, we want to make it a hearty meal for folks,” she instructs the group. Three slices of pork per portion. “If they’re a little thin, add a fourth,” Kurniawan adds. The team forms an assembly line and gets to work. As the boxes get filled, fellow distrubution co-leader Dianne Mahoney packs them into separate cartons for the multiple destinations to which four different volunteer drivers will deliver. As carrots run low, they’re replaced with Brussels sprouts. The potatoes transition to rice. The roasted pork loin runs out and is substituted with a creamy, soppressata pasta, and the sprouts become sautéed zucchini and summer squash. The never-ending variety of food donations make the week’s menu a revolving one.
There have been limitations to how far the donated food can stretch. When the Blizzard of ’26 hit in late February, it left tens of thousands of Cape Codders in the dark and cold when the power went out for up to five days. Warming shelters opened for residents to come in from the cold. And they needed to be fed. Local chefs like Mick Formichella of LUNE in Dennis Port and his team, along with Tropeano, jumped in to help the FTC team. They had the chefs. What they needed was food. Wheeler sent out the call for help to the World Central Kitchen (WCK), an organization founded by Chef José Andrés that provides meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises across the globe. Wheeler is a member of WCK’s Chef Corps, and WCK answered the call. Armed with the supplies, the chefs and staff (including Cape Cod Tech students who’d get dropped off by their parents because they wanted to help), churned out 15,000 meals in six days. A Herculean feat to say the least.
The ways the community can benefit from FTC are only growing, which, in turn, will help guarantee FTC’s survival. There are over 2000 non-profit organizations across Cape Cod; groups doing wonderful things to help others. Unfortunately, the majority are beholden to grants and donations to fund operations, and these are sources that can dry up at any point. FTC has taken steps to defend against such situations. While grants and donations are crucial to them, FTC has created a catering division to help generate income to guard against any disruptions to their operating budget. Corporate and family gatherings, fundraising events, and even operating the concessions at Cape Symphony concerts are just some of the ways FTC can generate revenue. “The catering makes all of this sustainable,” Wheeler points out. “Last year, the catering made up over 50% of our operating budget,” Wheeler beams. “And this is replicable!” It’s certainly possible that other areas of the country can help their neighbors in a similar way.
Chef Jeff Avery approached Jeni with another untapped resource. The bar at the former Riverway had gone unused since FTC moved into the space. He’s spearheaded the project to turn the space into the Tavern at FTC, an alcohol-free pub experience for those looking for a night out to enjoy creative specialty mocktails and a weekly pre-fixe five-course meal without the temptations and scenes alcohol can create. When Avery returned to his role as chef aboard a research vessel out of Woods Hole this spring, Chef Paulene Jones, formerly of Jones’n at Craigville snack bar, became the chef de cuisine. The Tavern is closing for the summer, but it’ll be back in the fall.
FTC has begun a capital campaign for their next chapter: purchasing the property. This will ensure an expansion of offerings such as a community kitchen for food entrepreneurs, opening a local makers’ marketplace, establishing The Commons at Riverway Café and Tavern, and building apartments to create affordable housing for employees. All this is with the goal of guaranteeing FTC’s future.
As Mr. Rogers would say, “Look for the helpers” when in times of crisis. Whether it’s an acute need or an ongoing battle against food insecurity, we can look to these chefs and volunteers, these angels in aprons of Family Table Collaborative, when the fear grows. They’ll be there to offer a hearty and healthy meal.
Along with being co-publisher of Edible Cape Cod with his wife Cori, Larry Egan is a New England Associated Press award-winning writer and commentator and host of the talk show The Handyman Hotline on Saturdays from 1-3 pm on 95.1 WXTK-FM. Larry is also the proud recipient of the 2025 Peter Gammons Award of Excellence and Distinction presented by the Cape Cod Baseball League for over two decades broadcasting CCBL games. He can often be found on the trails of Cape Cod being worn out by his personal trainer – their Portuguese Water Dog, Archie.
Family Table Collaborative
1338 Route 28, South Yarmouth
familytablecollaborative.org
