A few weeks before Thanksgiving, plump winter squash, bagged onions and sweet potatoes sat on metal shelves in the HOPE food shelf surplus room in Middlebury. Loose apples filled a large bin, and a cooler held parsnips, celery root and bags of clean but gnarled carrots. Jeanne Montross, the poverty relief nonprofit's executive director, said most of the produce had been donated by or gleaned from Vermont farms. Addison County residents can pick up such groceries daily from the surplus section, as well as make one monthly visit to HOPE's main food shelf area, which stocks staples such as fresh eggs and dairy, frozen meat, canned chili, and boxed macaroni and cheese. Traffic at both rooms has spiked over the past few years. In 2023, HOPE tallied 10,289 visits, a 70 percent jump from 2022, and this year's number is on track to leap again. In the surplus room, recipe cards offered simple steps for creamy potato soup, butternut squash pasta sauce and herbed parsnips. But Montross said many of HOPE's 3,000 annual clients, including about 55 who are homebound, face obstacles to cooking. "We know that a lot of folks don't have the strength or the resources or the time to take a winter squash and hack it open and peel it and cook it," Montross said. "We grow enough food here in Addison County that we can feed everybody, but it's been inaccessible to the people who need it the most." A partnership between HOPE and the recently established Little Village Acres project, led and funded by Vermont Coffee founder Paul Ralston, aims to help meet that growing need with local foods made as accessible as possible. The successful entrepreneur, who sold his 20-year-old Middlebury coffee roastery to national specialty foods company Stonewall Kitchen in 2021 for an undisclosed amount, is putting his money where his neighbors' mouths are, so to speak. Ralston also hopes that his effort can help funnel more Vermont food to those in need by demonstrating an on-farm model for turning surpluses into lightly processed and ready-to-eat offerings, from mashed squash to beef-and-vegetable chili. Ralston, 71, has so far invested a little over $2 million into a 6,000-square-foot processing, storage and cooking facility on his 10-acre Middlebury farm. "We're not done yet ... though I hope it's not a lot more," he said with a grin during an early-November tour. He plans…