Just over 50 years ago, there was no such thing as a food bank. Soup kitchens and food pantries, operating on shoestring budgets out of church basements and community centers, served as stopgap solutions for the hungry, and mostly only in emergencies.
The modern-day food bank came about in 1967, when a volunteer in a Phoenix-area soup kitchen realized that the grocery stores in his community were throwing away pounds upon pounds of food that were perfectly edible, yet deemed unfit for sale. John Van Hengel created the nation’s first food bank when he secured a warehouse that could store the excess food, establishing a gateway to the pantries and soup kitchens that were already in place and could distribute it to the needy.
Food banks grew slowly until the 1980s when the federal safety net shrank under the Reagan Administration and the charitable food system stepped in to address what was expected to be short-term need. The temporary charity soon became the norm, and today, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, working through tens of thousands of pantries and kitchens, supplies food to hungry people in every county of every state. With the nation’s poverty rate remaining consistent, hunger has become a standard part of everyday life for millions, formalizing the hub-and-spoke system of regional food banks connected to local pantries.
Over the decades, these food banks have become not just storehouses for food, but also resource centers for all things related to hunger. Food banks educate, advocate, and sponsor anti-hunger legislation. They supply job training, health care, nutrition education, legal services, tax help, and much more. Above all, food banks are businesses, engaged in the all-important work of sourcing food, raising funds, and corralling volunteers, while addressing day-to-day issues like transportation, storage, logistics, food safety and governance.
Food Bank News is the first publication to acknowledge the critical role that food banks play in the wellness and livelihood of millions of people living in the United States. We understand that what started as a side project for a single volunteer has now become a permanent layer in the nation’s food supply system. We get that food banks need to operate at a high level to solve overarching issues related to hunger, while still tending to the basic, daily needs of millions.
Our mission is to create a community where those on the front lines of solving hunger can get practical news and information to help them better perform their demanding and essential jobs. At the same time, we do not intend to lose sight of the many forces — societal, political and economic — that created the need for food banks in the first place.