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…
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As the head of Vermont’s only food bank, John Sayles was used to getting the occasional call from a big donor. But when he learned that the billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott wanted to hand over $9 million, he was stunned. The unprecedented gift was more than the Vermont Foodbank’s entire…
Food banks and other distributors are coming up with creative answers to the problem of reaching the food-insecure in rural areas. Solutions have ranged from using the U.S. mail in Montana, to employing tractor-trailers to resupply dozens of local agencies in Tennessee, to morphing ad-hoc firewood deliveries into a full-fledged…
As it seeks to generate $250 million to end hunger in Maine by 2025, Good Shepherd Food Bank is pushing new frontiers in how food banks raise funds. The campaign, announced during the last week of January, stands out for both its size and scope. The goal is flat-out huge…
The clients and agencies of the combined Connecticut Food Bank and Foodshare are already benefiting from the week-old merger of the two organizations. The January 30th agreement brings together Foodshare, with $14 million in 2019 revenue and operations in two counties, with the much larger Connecticut Food Bank, with $48…
The announcement last week that the USDA would continue to support food banks by purchasing massive amounts of produce, meat and dairy from the nation’s farmers was welcome relief to food bank CEOs, though they still expect a difficult 2021. The $1.5 billion extension of the Farmers to Families Food…
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,…
As the biggest news story of 2020, Covid-19 played a role in the conversation at Food Bank News’ CEO roundtable discussion, held online in early November. But more prominent were perennial questions about ways in which the problem of hunger should be framed and solved. There were unexpectedly positive outcomes…