Community Food Hub Officially Opens, Bringing Together Food Pantry, Nourish Nantucket, Land Bank

The new Community Food Hub - the new home of the Nantucket Food Pantry, Nourish Nantucket, and the Land Bank's agricultural processing facility on Boynton Lane - officially opened its doors on Sunday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included local officials, state representatives, and the organizations' supporters.

The facility represents "a dream come true" for the Food Pantry, which had been searching for a permanent home for years, as well as a base of operations for Nourish Nantucket, the island non-profit dedicated to fighting food insecurity. And for the Land Bank, which invested significant resources to acquire the property last fall, the facility demonstrates its latest collaborative efforts and an expansion of its agricultural program into venison processing, which will help its partners achieve their mission of feeding island residents in need. 

"Nourish Nantucket was founded on the principle that by working together we can accomplish great things, and this building is a testament to that core belief," Nourish Nantucket board president and Nantucket Select Board vice chair Brooke Mohr said to the gathering of roughly 50 people who attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. "The Land Bank, Nantucket Interfaith Council, Nantucket Food, Fuel, and Rental Assistance, and the Pantry, along with Nourish Nantucket - three organizations with separate facility needs came together to imagine a place where those needs could be met in a single location. So here we are today to celebrate the work that went into imagining, financing, and building out this amazing food hub."

Existing estimates suggest that around one in five island residents struggles to afford food, and the Community Food Hub is a major step toward addressing Nantucket's food insecurity problem.

The property at 17, 19 and 21 Boynton Lane, the former home of Kim Reed's catering business, A Taste of Nantucket, was sold to the Land Bank and Nourish Nantucket in October 2025 for $6.5 million (Reed's business has since moved to a new location). Nantucket Land Bank executive director Rachael Freeman told the Current at the time that $5.5 million came from the Land Bank, which owns 60 percent of the building, and the other $1 million came from Nourish Nantucket, which will own the remaining 40 percent.

"This may be the only place in this country where a problem this complex, this serious, can be nearly solved in this amount of time," said Bruce A. Percelay, a Nourish Nantucket board member. "Nantucket is indeed a special place. When people on this island put their minds to something, it gets done. Now, we have not solved the food insecurity problem, but we are well on our way, and this could not have happened without an incredible amount of cooperation.

"The simple idea of using deer to feed people on an island that has too many is a win-win-win," Percelay added. "And it is an extraordinary testimony to the Land Bank and Rachael Freeman for working with us. The Food Pantry, equally important, is the most important source for food on this island, and together our triumvirate has produced an extraordinary outcome."

In addition to Freeman, the five elected Land Bank Commissioners were on hand for the ceremony, along with State Representative Thomas Moakley and State Senator Julian Cyr.

The first floor of the building will be used by Nourish Nantucket to offer a variety of programs, including utilizing its new commercial kitchen to fill gaps in the food security system. The building will enable Nourish Nantucket to prepare weekly meals, summer breakfast and lunch programs for Nantucket students, be a collection space for food rescue, as well as distribute grocery cards and local produce in collaboration with Sustainable Nantucket, among other initiatives.

The second half of the building’s first floor will house the Nantucket Food Pantry, operated by the Nantucket Interfaith Council’s Food, Fuel, and Rental Assistance programs. The Food Pantry recently moved its operation from its previous rented space on Washington Street, and has already begun serving its clients out of the new space.

"Finding a permanent home for the Food Bank is literally a dream come true and given the building’s size and location, it will serve this community for many decades to come," said Food Pantry manager Ruth Pitts.

In the basement of the facility, the Land Bank has already started operating a locally harvested venison processing facility, a unique model that both supports local agriculture and food security while addressing the island’s deer-management goals. During the island's deer hunting season, the facility processed more than 60 deer and donated hundreds of pounds of venison.

"The Land Bank staff and Commission are proud to be here today, highlighting one of our most important and successful collaborations, the creation of the Nantucket Community Food Hub," Freeman said on Sunday. "I want to express my sincere gratitude to our partners at Nourish Nantucket and the Nantucket Interfaith Council's Food Pantry and Food, Fuel, and Rental Assistance programs. Without your hard work, dedication, and tenacity. None of this would have been possible."

Disclosure: Bruce A. Percelay is a board member of Nourish Nantucket and the publisher of Nantucket Current.