As a former chef and restaurant owner, Greg Silverman knows a thing or two about how to get the best food at the best price. That knowledge helped him reduce by nearly 20% the cost of purchasing food for the mega-pantry he runs and three other pantries, all in New…
Posts published in “Food Pantries”
In an odd coincidence, there are about as many people in America who garden (42 million) as are food-insecure (37.2 million). That works out well for AmpleHarvest.org, a website that seeks to match the abundance of produce grown by home gardeners with local food pantries that could use it. So…
With a small financial commitment and the help of about a dozen volunteers, a food pantry in Oregon is finding it’s not so hard to make a big difference in the lives of the homebound in its community. A program to deliver food once a month to elderly and disabled…
Following a three-year pilot, the Kelly Center for Hunger Relief in El Paso, Texas, is moving full steam ahead on a program to help clients decrease their reliance on charitable food and move toward greater self-sufficiency. With many moving parts, the program represents a large commitment of resources and time…
When Stephen Giuliano became Executive Director of Operation Sharing in Ontario, Canada, he determined that the best way to address hunger in his community was to shut down the food pantry. In its place is a program, now in its 15th year, in which clients use food cards loaded with…
Data and automation are not exactly dirty words at food pantries, but they are far from commonplace. A Des Moines food pantry network, however, is embracing both to help it nudge clients toward healthier options and also energize its advocacy efforts. Like many food pantries, the Des Moines Area Religious…
As one of the first food pantries in the country to move to a digital ordering and reservation system, Lutheran Social Services in Ohio is providing time-saving benefits to clients, while cutting costs. LSS, which serves about 2,000 food-pantry clients a month in the Columbus area, started letting clients order…
Like many food pantry managers, the ones at Interfaith Food Pantry of the Oranges in New Jersey wanted their clients to be able to choose their foods, as if in a grocery store. But they also saw a lot of obstacles: they didn’t have a dedicated space for their pantry,…
About 200 pantries in New York City have shortened wait times and boosted dignity by letting clients reserve times to pick up their food. Now the maker of the service, Plentiful, is seeking to work with food banks across the country to help bring the low-cost reservation system to other…