The Daily Table is a non-profit food organization, dedicated to providing fresh, nutritious, and tasty food to communities at an affordable price. The Daily Table has four locations that include Cambridge, Dorchester, Roxbury, and the newly added Mattapan market which opened on March 30th, 2023.
In 2012, Doug Rauch founded the daily table to help combat hunger and obesity. In 2015, the Daily Table opened its first store in Dorchester and over the years continued to expand. They also offer services like the Teaching Kitchen, where they offer cooking classes, and the Double Up Food Bucks program which doubles the value of “food stamps.” The Daily Table works to serve the community externally and internally by helping its employees advance their careers.
Phyleia Doe is the store manager for Daily Table’s Mattapan location. Doe started off in the Cambridge location as a team leader and then applied for a management position with the encouragement of her team. Through Doe’s hard work, she became a store manager on November 2022, and as a result, she worked at every Daily Table location.
When Doe was growing up in Roxbury, she noted that most of her vegetables came out of cans because that was what was affordable. But during her time at the Roxbury Daily Table location, Doe was able to notice a change. “Eating habits have changed, low-income communities want to eat healthy it just cost too much. They don’t have that worry at the Daily Table.” Not only are people getting healthier but so is the community. “To see the community come in and shop, holding conversations about how they are happy we are there felt amazing.” The Daily Table has and is still changing neighborhoods through access to nutritious food, so more people have food security.
Feeding America states that 34 million Americans face food insecurity. A large portion of people lacks consistent physical and economic access to nutritious food for an active, healthy life. Food is essential to the human body for people to have the energy to work, go to school, and live life. Everyone should be able to have access to healthy food and through the Daily Table, Bostonians in disenfranchised neighborhoods no longer have to deal with food insecurity.
A world where everyone has an equitable opportunity for food security is a world where people have less stress and the Daily Table is helping to create that world, one market at a time.
