Month: February 2025

The Best Part of Using a Food Pantry

I recently was chatting with a farmer who sells their produce at a nearby farmers market, and I mentioned that my professional experience lies primarily in food pantries, and they had so much to say. This farmer shared that when they first moved to Oregon, they depended upon a food pantry and clothing closet. I wasn’t sure what they were going to say next, because it is a negative experience for many.

However, this person absolutely gushed about what a positive experience they had. They visited a grocery style pantry, which gave them the autonomy to make their own food choices, and they said their regular visits were the most respectful, dignified, and compassionate experiences they could have imagined. Years later, their farm still makes regular donations of fresh produce to that pantry.

I don’t hear a lot of these stories. While there are plenty of wonderful food pantries doing incredible work, there are also lots of food pantries reinforcing the narrative that people experiencing hunger are there because of personal failures, bad judgment, or a lack of responsibility. Even pantries with friendly volunteers and a healthy food supply can foster systems and attitudes that still leave their shoppers feeling humiliated or ashamed.

Unfortunately, eliminating these judgements in food pantries depends upon establishing new foundational attitudes rather than just increasing the budget or building capacity.

It’s not something that we can fix with a grant, a handbook, or a webinar training series. This is a reflection of much deeper assumptions that our society holds about poverty, hunger, and responsibility to one another, and it’s much harder to change.

This farmer I spoke to didn’t mention anything about the quality or the quantity of food they received. They didn’t even talk about the line or limits on food supply. Instead, they talked about how the food pantry made them feel. They felt respected, seen, and dignified.

While food is obviously an important component of the pantry experience, this reminds me that even pantries without enough food or those who are unable to access culturally or nutritionally specific options can still make a lasting, positive impact on the individuals they serve.

What are the foundational attitudes for fostering a positive food pantry experience?

  • Everyone deserves to eat without qualifiers, conditions, or exception. It’s important to recognize that if someone doesn’t get food at your food pantry, they might not eat at all. That is not okay. People who have a new iPhone deserve to eat. Immigrants and refugees deserve to eat. People with strict preferences and nutritional limitations deserve to eat. People with visible and invisible disabilities deserve to eat. The community can tell whether your team believes this or not, in how policies are implemented, clients are treated, and services are advertised.

Even if food pantries don’t have everything someone needs, they can still practice compassion by respecting their humanity and need for nourishment. If you’ve ever heard a volunteer question whether someone deserves to visit your food pantry, then you have work to do.

You are the best expert on the food your body needs to thrive. Why would a food pantry client be any different?

  • Treat pantry clients as equals. It’s far too easy when dispensing charity for organizations to demand submission from program recipients, which can manifest as strict rules about waiting in line, nitpicking about paperwork, or checking shopping bags to ensure limits were followed. There are ways to enforce pantry policies without aggressively asserting the power imbalance of using a food pantry. Start by discussing the power disparities, with clients if you can; they probably have a very different perspective than staff and volunteers. Welcome clients to the volunteer team, and take seriously what they share about their own experience.
  • Dignity. Food pantry clients don’t want pity, or condescension, or judgement at all (just like anyone else!) As the need goes up and pantries serve increasing numbers of clients, it can be hard to hold onto the reality that every one of those clients is a human over whom the pantry has significant power. However, focusing on scaling up and efficiency adds very little to a positive food pantry experience.

Even though these are foundational attitudes, they aren’t impossible to introduce to a pantry. Success depends on consistency and exposure, and leadership that is eager to embrace food justice and human dignity.  Building these ideas into your mission, values, and strategic plan is the best way to demonstrate your commitment to the community.

Nonprofits are overwhelmed by need and rightly panicked about funding. But we need to focus on the reality that the most important part of using a food pantry; the piece which clients will remember and share with their neighbors, has little to do with the food they got and everything to do with how their visit made them feel.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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Using Farmers’ Markets to Fight Hunger

Food banks and pantries are running out of food. Rising prices, combined with shortages of foods like eggs, a likely scarcity of agricultural workers, and the complications of potential tariffs mean that there’s less food available to anti-hunger organizations despite the rising need.

The stress of this situation means that anti-hunger advocates are getting creative by trying to access new resources or uplift underutilized connections.

As part of this movement, I’ve been fielding calls from several food pantries about the best ways to connect with farmers’ markets as a potential food source. It’s true that markets don’t tend to have large gleaning or donor relationships with anti-hunger organizations. There are a lot of reasons why this is not a simple partnership, so today I’m going to dig into the challenges your pantry needs to consider if pursuing this option.

What are the challenges of establishing partnerships between food pantries and farmers’ markets?

  • Farmers’ markets, unlike food pantries, have hours targeting maximum community participation, which is why they are often operate on weekends or in the late afternoon.

Food pantries are usually open at the convenience of their volunteers, which means pantries and farmers’ markets do not consistently have overlapping open hours. This can make it hard to connect and harder to collect donations.

While volunteers may be willing, few people have the capacity to store fresh donations safely in their own refrigerator until they can get it to the pantry the next day.

I have turned down numerous pantry donations that were kept in someone’s garage, coolers, car, or other inadequate space because they didn’t want it to go to waste, but they couldn’t store it properly. Don’t compromise on food safety!

  • There is no guarantee that there will be any food to donate. In a perfect world, farmers’ market vendors sell out every time. Small-scale farmers do not usually have sale opportunities every day, so they work hard to guestimate the right amount of food to harvest with minimal waste. Food pantries may not be eager or able to commit to a regular pickup when the amount is uncertain or minimal.
  • Food pantries are used to collaborating with grocery stores for whom donations rarely impact their bottom line. I’ve worked with many stores who can be flexible, generous, and casual about their donations to pantries.

Small farmers, however, don’t necessarily have that luxury. It’s hard to profit as a farmer, which means they don’t have the wiggle room to donate as much as your pantry would like, and aggressive solicitation can be counterproductive.

  • Farmers’ market vendors never know what will be leftover, and it may or may not be a familiar product for food pantry clients.

The joy of shopping at a farmers’ market is that you’ll discover beautiful local produce in varieties you’ve never seen before. However, those same options can be a challenge at a food pantry, where shoppers may have limited access to cooking utensils, recipes, or energy to learn about an unfamiliar food.

One of the greatest barriers I’ve encountered is that volunteers often don’t prioritize giving away foods they aren’t familiar with, which means some of the most fun and delicious donations don’t make it into the hands of people who may want it before it spoils.

None of these barriers are insurmountable, and I don’t intend to discourage any pantry from working with a farmers’ market. It’s simply important to recognize that working directly with farmers’ markets demands a different relationship and attitude than with a large grocery chain.

Despite the unique challenges, farmers’ markets offer an incredible opportunity to build relationships that can maximize your food purchasing budget. Buying a CSA share from a local farm is an incredible way to access local, fresh food while supporting a neighboring business. And making reliable purchases might enable a farmer to offer deals or discounts to pantries to maximize their dollars.

Targeting a farmers’ market can be a challenging avenue for food pantries, but if you have the capacity and drive to build a relationship with local farmers, then there is enormous potential for everyone to benefit.  

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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