There may be food banks out there that offer free tax prep and filing services to low-income individuals, but perhaps none have embraced it as forcefully as Food Bank for New York City. Since 2002, the food bank has been taking advantage of a long-standing Internal Revenue Service program that…
Posts published in “Root Causes”
New York City-based WhyHunger has always had an atypical way of addressing hunger, and now it has a new Executive Director to carry out that approach. Jenique Jones became the nonprofit’s leader over the summer, taking the place of Noreen Springstead who spent a 30-year career at WhyHunger before becoming…
While many food banks help clients sign up for SNAP, fewer are equipped to also help them apply for other benefits like Medicaid, and fewer still take steps to ensure clients are putting their monthly benefits to proper use. Freestore Foodbank of Cincinnati is taking on that role by acting…
The Kelly Center for Hunger Relief in El Paso, Tex., had a pretty good feeling a few years ago about the positive impact of its FreshStart program, which is designed to move food pantry clients toward self-sufficiency. Those feelings were confirmed with the results of a recently released formal evaluation…
For a small but growing number of food banks, distributing food is no longer enough. These food banks, including Feeding Tampa Bay and Greater Cleveland Food Bank, are re-orienting their operations to support a range of services that go beyond providing basic hunger relief. The wider scope is evident in…
On a Thursday evening in early October, the multi-purpose room at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, Pa., was transformed from a large, empty room into a low-tech factory with dozens of production lines. Over the next four days, more than 3,000 volunteers working in small teams over two-hour shifts scooped,…
A yearly pay increase of 3%, a floating holiday, and a boot stipend for warehouse workers are among the benefits that employees of San Francisco-Marin Food Bank have gained since they’ve unionized. The food bank became the one of the few in the country to recognize a union in late…
The connection between poor mental health and food insecurity comes as no surprise to the people who run Chicago-based Lakeview Pantry. While the pandemic has highlighted the link between food insecurity and mental health, Lakeview has been addressing the issue since as far back as 2017, when it began offering…
The food bank CEOs of America have a lot to be proud of when they think back on the enormous amount of aid they’ve provided to vulnerable populations devastated by Covid-19. The Feeding America network alone (which does not include dozens of independent food banks) distributed more than six billion…