Nearly two years following Hurricane Helene’s destruction, MANNA FoodBank in Asheville, N.C. is rebuilding with resilience in mind. It is one of a growing number of food banks to utilize rooftop solar panels, in this case to power its newly opened facility, which includes 16,500 square feet for cold storage.…
Posts published in “Strategy”
Long-standing tax incentives for renewable energy may have expired this month, but that has not dampened enthusiasm for solar projects among a growing set of food banks. Commercial solar projects that begin after July 3, 2026 are no longer eligible for a federal tax rebate, which previously allowed organizations to…
About two years ago, Greater Cleveland Food Bank and Feeding Tampa Bay both pioneered a model of food banking that makes it easy for neighbors to access a wide variety of social services at the same time they get their food. The approach has been successful enough that both are…
Central Texas Food Bank is like many food banks in opening a new distribution facility, but also stands apart for its extensive use of data to determine where to go. Its new 64,000-square-foot facility includes a warehouse, a commercial kitchen, an on-site market and a community garden. Perhaps most important,…
When Food Share of Ventura County in California started up a drive-through distribution program during Covid, it expected to run it for 60 days. Today, the drive-through is still going strong, pumping out tons of food to up to 1,000 cars every Wednesday. The staying power of the drive-through at…
When Tom Nardacci, CEO of New York State’s Regional Food Bank, considers opportunities for sourcing more food, he sees limits to the amount of food that can be donated, rescued, or government-supplied. He also sees plenty of farms. That landscape is the reason behind a new strategy putting much more…
A new program at Community Food Share of Colorado underscores the value of listening to community members with lived experience of food insecurity. The program, about to be expanded, never would have come into fruition if not for the input from people living in low-income, low food-access communities. Their viewpoint…
At the Food Club Network in Michigan, patrons are not “clients” or “neighbors,” but “members,” highlighting a novel way of doing hunger relief that is about to expand. Seeking to create an experience that resembles typical grocery shopping, the Food Club Network has pioneered well-stocked, healthy-food pantries that offer 30-day…
San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is proving that people with lived experience of hunger have a multitude of expertise to lend to food banks. Like a growing number of food banks, it already taps its participants to tell their personal stories to legislators to advocate for policy change. Soon it will…