In keeping with food banks across the country that are experimenting with new ways of reaching out to clients, Redwood Empire Food Bank is expanding offerings at its one-of-a-kind grocery store for low-income people. Its Food Connections Market, located next to Redwood Empire’s warehouse, is not a food pantry, a…
Posts published in “Food Pantries”
Capital Area Food Bank is far from the only food bank to have faced disruptions during the pandemic as its pantries and other partner agencies struggled to stay open. But it may be one of the few taking a highly analytical approach to restructuring its pantry network, post-pandemic. [This article…
Most people who work at a food pantry can relate to this scenario: a shortage of something essential like peanut butter leads to a trip to the grocery store, just in time for the next distribution. Last-minute scrambles like these may be common, but they’re also “a terrible use of…
Some of the nation’s largest food banks are setting new standards for the food pantries of the future. Food banks among the top 20 on Food Bank News’ list of the largest 100 have recently designed and introduced food distribution outlets that differ sharply from traditional pantries. Like other emerging…
The most crucial ingredient in Our Neighbors Table’s plan to bring food security to its region by 2029 is not food — it’s community involvement via an advisory group of local organizations. Its Food Security Advisory Group, which includes local town officials, health care providers, schools and councils on aging,…
Julie Yurko, the President and CEO of Northern Illinois Food Bank, was on vacation reading a book called “Delivering Happiness” about the online shoe seller Zappos when it occurred to her that the concept of online ordering with a focus on customer service did not exist in the charitable food…
When demand for charitable food ratcheted up in the early stages of the pandemic, San Diego Food Bank responded like many of its peers — with mass distributions aimed at getting food to hundreds or even thousands of people at a time. But the results of those efforts did not…
Hotlines, text services and even navigation apps are among the tools food banks are using to better connect people to their neighborhood pantries during the pandemic. The tools go beyond the basic pantry locators typically found on many websites, and often take advantage of the accessibility mobile technology offers. In…
The results of a three-year study published this spring in the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition are a reminder that even as pantries focus on distributing emergency food during the pandemic, there is value in connecting clients to social services that go beyond food. The study of 484 people…