“Food will always draw people.”

Alicia Blais still remembers these words nearly a decade later. She heard them at a meeting featuring a speaker running a ministry that delivered 20 hot lunches to around 20 people without secure housing. Often, around 30 people could’ve used the warm meal. 

Blais was running a cafe in Framingham with her husband, David, at the time.

“I said, ‘So, how about I make lunches for you every Saturday? I’ll make the 50 bagged lunches, and you get them in the hands of those who need them because my restaurant is open on Saturday,” Blais recalled. 

A partnership was born. Eventually, Blais hatched an idea to host free weekly dinners. Ironically:

“No one came,” Blais said. “This happened for five months, five different times. Once, I had eight people show up.”

Yes, food draws people. Yet, life isn’t a field of dreams. Building it doesn’t mean they will come — even if they want to — because they can’t.

“If you have a lower income, you [often] have a one-car house, and somebody has it at work or school,” Blais said she realized. “You can’t get to us.”

So, Blais flipped the script and asked: How can we get to them? She and David decided on a food truck. The response shifted immediately. People came — 50 on one Saturday. They laid out groceries on the sidewalk, and children got hot, scratch-made foods. Families went home with bags of groceries. It was successful but not sustainable, especially with the need to run a cafe full-time. The Blaises had a decision to make: restaurant or non-profit.

Then, the couple learned a building in Framingham would become available after a tenant decided not to renew their lease. It tipped the scales, and Blais said they decided to go into the non-profit space full-time. In 2016, Daniel’s Table became a registered non-profit. 

Currently, Daniel’s Table has three main components: grocery distribution, education and a freezer program.

Daniel’s Table focuses on the client’s choice of groceries at a Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays at an interim location at 56 Park Street. 

“We don’t have any waste,” Blais said. “We don’t want to give people food that their family doesn’t eat.”

However, Blais encourages people to be open to trying new foods considered in-season in Massachusetts, which may be different from what they were used to if they came from somewhere else in the U.S. or abroad. That’s where the education piece comes in.

“We don’t want people to be on a food program forever, and you need to be educated,” Blais said. “Not everybody knows how to cook. Not everybody knows how to shop. Not everybody knows how to budget.”

Daniel’s Table began putting out recipes and instructions on serving different foods. For instance, people can shave the vegetable, kohlrabi, and serve it raw or cooked. Daniel’s Table tries to provide three different serving tips and lets people taste the food. It makes the experience less transactional.

“It’s a community,” Blais said. “It’s very social — people stay around and eat it. People are like, ‘Oh, you know what? My mother uses something like this. Oh, when I make this, I like it.’ It gets the conversation going.”

Last year, Blais couldn’t get people to take cranberries. After showing people how to make cranberry relish, bread and sauce, they were chomping at the bit to get it this time around. Gaining Ground joined that community in 2021, adding fresh produce and descriptions to Daniel’s Table’s repertoire with a client-centric approach. 

“Gaining Ground actually asks,’ What could we grow that your client would like?’” Blais said. “We had people come here, and the first thing they said was, ‘I can’t believe there’s so much fresh food — real food. It gives me an opportunity. Yes, there’s fresh food, but I can teach people [about the food that grows here each season].”

The education and grocery component also has a special piece for children during school breaks: The full belly bag that contains two breakfasts, two lunches, drinks and snacks. 

“We put things in a bag for kids to take when they’re on school vacation when they are not getting their breakfast or lunch at school, but parents might still be working,” Blais said. “It’s things kids can make themselves so they’re empowered.”

Think cereal boxes, oatmeal pouches, shelf-staple milk, noodle bowls and pouch-style tuna and chicken. 

Finally, there’s a freezer program, which has grown in recent years. Before the pandemic, Daniel’s Table served frozen, pre-made meals at 21 locations. COVID-related closings saw that number dip to 21. However, it’s come back and evolved — Blais told Gaining Ground in December of 2024 that Daniel’s Table recently put in its 29th freezer. 

It’s a busy time for Daniel’s Table. The organization still delivers groceries to those who can’t get them in person (around 15 to 20 households). Anywhere from 80 to 120 families pick up groceries weekly.

There’s more growth coming. Blais said they’re currently working out of an interim building after selling the previous one. But a new building with a full commercial kitchen and community room for the market is in the works. The timetable isn’t precise, but they hope to fill the space within another year. 

Blais stresses that the building process — and everything Daniel’s Table does — is a community effort, and not merely for the families who pick up food but the surrounding neighborhood. While it may surprise the general public, Blais said the organization is in a good spot with food donations.

“We are grateful — very grateful — for all the food donations we get, but what we really need is money to support our refrigeration so that I can take food around … If I don’t have a refrigerator, I can’t have fresh food. If I don’t have a freezer, I can’t bring healthy, lean meats into the building. It helps me give people fresh food, rather than solely canned, dried items.”