Empowering the Masses of Dallas, Tex., serves 1,500 people a month through its hunger relief programs … but the food it serves is not really the point. The nonprofit’s mission statement emphasizes building stronger communities through vocational training and core skills development. Food plays a role as the “carrot.” It…
Posts published in “Pantry Link”
Food banks are not the only types of hunger relief agencies to pair free food alongside other social services (see article here). Some food pantries are also adding non-food social services like employment help, medical support and financial literacy to their food offerings. They are housing the combined services in…
For many food pantries, language barriers are a common obstacle to serving a diverse client base. One food pantry in the Chicago area is taking advantage of two distinct technologies to help non-English speakers navigate the pantry, whether they are accessing it online or in person. The West Suburban Community…
Remote lockers are the latest way in which a Wash.-based nonprofit is shedding the usual trappings of a traditional charitable food organization. Its Fresh Lockers are part of an ongoing effort to make the experience of getting free food feel more normal and dignified. The lockers expand upon the organization’s…
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…
Beyond Hunger in Chicago has become the first food pantry in the nation to take part in the Good Food Purchasing Program, an initiative that prioritizes values over low cost when making food purchases. The premise behind the program is that an entire ecosystem exists behind the food that communities…
Like any hunger relief organization, Crossroads Community Services in Dallas distributes lots of food. Unlike most, it also acts as an incubator for research-based innovation. Over time, its research has pushed it to change its practices, including toward a food distribution model that encourages frequent client visits as a means…
As more people recognize that food is integral to health, more hospital-based food pantries are turning up. In Chicago, one hospital has pioneered an “open-access” pantry model that it contends can be more beneficial to public health than other approaches. The Feed1st pantry at the University of Chicago Medical Center…
Early on in the pandemic, NYC-based Met Council, the nation’s largest kosher food pantry network, was invited to a meeting at the mayor’s office where government officials ran down a list of more than 800 food pantries to make sure each had access to the city’s emergency food system. When…