The healthcare system may be vast and complicated, but finding a way to work within it can supercharge a food bank’s ability to ease food insecurity. Second Harvest Heartland, the country’s seventh-largest food bank (by revenue) and the largest in Minnesota, has succeeded in integrating itself into the state’s healthcare…
Food Bank News
Miles-long lines at food banks during Covid highlighted just how easily families may slip into food insecurity, despite the ongoing efforts of food banks over the past 50 years to distribute food. Even before Covid exposed the precarious nature of many families’ food budgets, hunger relief organizations were beginning to…
To achieve its goal of ending food insecurity in Maine, Good Shepherd Food Bank is enlisting the help of broccoli. The food bank, Maine’s largest, is starting a produce-processing company called Harvesting Good that will offer frozen produce year round to retail and institutional customers. The goal of the company…
Food banking may never be the same again. After more than a year of being in crisis mode, food banks are settling into a new normal — meeting still-elevated need, but doing it more effectively than ever before thanks to 14 months of intense, pandemic-pressurized learning. Among the Covid-inspired innovations…
A service that lets home gardeners donate their excess produce to hunger relief organizations has expanded from 23 zip codes in 2019, to 985 zip codes currently. A mobile version of the service, which was introduced last year and helps coordinate transportation of the donated produce, helped propel that expansion.…
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…
Houston Food Bank is one of the largest food banks in the United States, distributing more than 800,000 pounds of food per day. Residents of 18 counties depend on Houston Food Bank and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, applications for services soared. From March 2020 to March 2021, the Houston…
Just as grocery stores are making it possible for Americans to do more of their shopping online through apps like Instacart and FreshDirect, so too are food pantries embracing digital choice. While some pantries had begun experimenting with online ordering for clients before Covid-19, others made the switch as a way…
It’s fair to say that food banks loved the fresh produce they received from the Farmers to Families Food Box program, but they did not like the way it was distributed. As that program comes to a close, the new program set to take its place starting in May hits…