New York Common Pantry in New York City is rare among hunger relief organizations for offering hygiene services like showers. Recently, the pantry doubled down on hygiene, unveiling a renovation that adds more shower stalls than before, laundry facilities and even a space for haircuts. The upgraded amenities fall under…
Posts published in “Food Pantries”
As the SNAP crisis unfolded during last year’s government shutdown, a food pantry in St. Louis identified a gaping problem: It wanted to expand to help more people, but it didn’t know which communities were most affected. There was public data available about food insecurity, as well as information about…
A framework for hunger relief pioneered in Canada is slowly making its way into the United States. Gather, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based nonprofit founded in 1816 to support the families of fishermen, has become only the second organization in the U.S. to adopt Canada’s Community Food Center model, which uses a…
Vermont Foodbank is getting more strategic in how it grants funds to partner agencies. During the Covid years, it was like many food banks in channeling money to pantries for a broad range of capacity-building projects to help meet increased demand. Now it is getting more focused in its competitive…
With uncertainty riding high these days, many food banks are focused on the basic task of pushing out more food through their pantry networks. At the same time, some are also seeing the value of building up their pantry networks in search of longer-term solutions to food insecurity. Capacity building…
Many food pantries are familiar with the concept of referring their clients to other nonprofits that can help meet needs beyond food. Brochures, business cards and flyers are among the mechanisms used to execute referrals, even though these methods often fall short in ensuring that clients actually follow through. More…
St. John’s Bread & Life in Brooklyn, NY, has long been a leader in giving clients an easy, de-stigmatized way to digitally browse and select pantry goods. The agency was a trend-setter as far back as 2000, when it made desktop computers available so clients could place their grocery orders…
Houston Food Bank has found an unconventional way to improve the experiences of pantry clients by tapping mystery shoppers, a tactic typically used in retail. With its Neighbor Experience Initiative, the food bank deployed mystery shoppers to report back on their in-person interactions at several pantries. Through the lens of…
Food bankers often say that when you’ve seen one food bank, you’ve seen one food bank. The same could be said for mobile markets. All mobile markets have the goal of addressing food insecurity in communities with limited access to fresh, affordable food, but they may differ in the details…