The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts has a few things going for it when it comes to Food is Medicine. First, it has long championed building relationships with area hospitals, giving it valuable exposure to the healthcare world. Second, it operates in a state that is actively pursuing solutions and…
Food Bank News
One of the most difficult aspects of advocacy for nonprofits is figuring out where to focus the most energy and attention. Boston-based Project Bread, which promotes food security and food access throughout Massachusetts, recently met this challenge head on. To determine its eight-point legislative agenda for the state’s upcoming 2025-2026…
March was not a good month for food banks. Early in March, food banks found out that $500 million for LFPA, a popular federal program that gives them money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, would go away. Toward the end of the month, they learned that another…
Central California Food Bank is taking a “quality over quantity” approach to its First Fruits Market, a free grocery store it opened in September 2023 in downtown Fresno. Located on a campus with other nonprofit and service-based organizations, the market serves about 250 families on each of the three days…
Seven years ago, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, published what it called a “groundbreaking” report on food bank nutrition policies. It found that food banks with formal nutrition policies distributed more fresh fruits and vegetables than those without, while also distributing much less unhealthy food. (See our article on…
INDIANAPOLIS, IN. – One of the best things a food bank can do to get started in Food is Medicine is to lobby their state food-bank leadership to get involved. That’s because the managed care organizations seeking to use nutritious food to improve public health generally operate statewide and even…
Candice Griego is on the hunt for mutton. As the Director of Tribal Relations at Roadrunner Food Bank in Albuquerque, N.M., Griego has identified mutton as highly desired among members of the Navajo Nation. Tracking it down is one part of her five-months-in role, which is entirely new to the…
Food banks play an essential role in the U.S. food system as aggregators of value. Like a wholesaler or regional distribution center for a retailer, the food bank orchestrates bulk inputs to hunger relief, breaks bulk, and redistributes that value in right-sized quantities to and through their affiliated agencies. The…
WASHINGTON D.C. – At a time when Congress is contemplating cuts to SNAP benefits of up to 20%, a panel of food policy experts meeting last week found reasons to be hopeful that bipartisan collaboration could bolster other aspects of federal food assistance. The panel, speaking at the Consumer Federation…