Over the past year or so, a growing number of food banks have experimented with opening one or two of their own food pantries as a way of expanding capacity. It’s a strategy that Long Island Cares has been pursuing with success for more than a decade. This month, the…
Posts published in “Strategy”
Add two more food banks to the list of those opening their own model food pantries. Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado and East Texas Food Bank both recently opened distribution outlets that incorporate food-pantry best practices. The pantries operate in a supermarket style, allowing clients to pick…
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…
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…