Category: Working with Volunteers

Building an Abundance Mindset in Your Anti-Hunger Team

When we are depleted, it is harder to take care of those around us. It’s difficult to convince our community we have the resources we need to support them when we ourselves don’t believe it.

There is no time or place where this reality is more relevant than right now in our food pantries and banks. Rising numbers of visitors alongside interruptions and cuts to the food supply mean that anti-hunger fighters face increasing burdens with fewer resources.

Last week, I had the ultimate privilege of being part of a webinar panel on building abundance hosted by Katie Martin, the author of Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries, alongside food banking expert and consultant Seana Weaver.

We spoke about why the idea of abundance is so important to food pantries, and dug into some of the ways that we can foster that attitude among anti-hunger advocates. Here is the video if you’re interested.

It’s important to remember that abundance means having a lot of something, and that it’s possible to have a lot without having enough. This is an essential duality that food pantries experience every day.

How we think about hunger is one of the most powerful influences on how we fight it. When we focus on what we don’t have, the emphasis falls on maintaining limited resources, often to the detriment of the people we intend to serve. When we adopt an abundant mindset, it empowers us to celebrate what we do have and use it more effectively.

While a future post will discuss what we can do to help food pantry guests feel this sense of abundance, it’s important that we start with staff and volunteers. Convincing this demographic that your food pantry has the resources to thrive means they can more successfully convey it to your community.  

Introducing abundance to staff:

  • Adequate wages and benefits. Too often the nonprofit world expects employees to be martyrs, dedicated to the work regardless of the reward. No matter how we feel about the work, the reality is that we also must pay rent, afford medical bills, buy food, and maintain our vehicles. You’re likely to breed resentment if your focus on abundance is limited to the people you serve.
  • Support: Are there enough staff to do the work? Is it possible for staff to comfortably take a break or lunch? Is there an expectation (spoken or not) that staff should sacrifice to support each other, like not taking days off? While I recognize that few pantries have the resources to add staff, keep in mind that retention is cheaper than regularly hiring and training new individuals.
  • Recognition: Fighting hunger demands an enormous amount of emotional labor. Every day, staff work with people who are struggling with enormous challenges; not just hunger but also housing insecurity, medical debt, caregiving, and all kinds of discrimination. Offering daily support to 40 or 50 different people experiencing some kind of trauma is enormously exhausting. Too often, workplaces don’t recognize that the conversations that go into these interactions are just as difficult and draining as moving thousands of pounds of canned goods.

Demonstrating abundance to volunteers:

  • Celebrate abundance. When a guest leaves the pantry with an abundant amount of food, I’ve often heard volunteers mutter comments about how it’s “too much.” I like to counter this attitude by regularly telling volunteers how excited I am when someone leaves with lots of food, and to envision the excitement and security that the individual must feel when accessing this support. This can gradually help your volunteers transition from the idea that your pantry should give out as little food as possible to maintain supply, and instead to give out as much as is necessary to ensure your community feels supported and nourished.
  • Pick a food item to treat abundantly. Ask your volunteers to act as if they have an unlimited supply to encourage guests to take. It doesn’t have to be a popular food, and it doesn’t have to be consistent (I’ve done this with everything from cranberry sauce to cabbage to veggie chips.) Demonstrating an excess will help volunteers gradually process that their role is to be givers of abundance rather than gatekeepers, while also sharing this attitude with your pantry guests.
  • Don’t put volunteers in enforcement roles. When volunteers are responsible for supervising shoppers, such as telling them where they are allowed to go or how much food they may take, it forces them into a confrontational position focused on scarcity. It’s incredibly difficult to feel positive about the impact they’re making when the focus is on telling people what not to do and what they can’t have. I encourage pantries to have volunteers in monitoring positions, but to get staff when enforcement is needed so that volunteers remain immersed in abundance. This is an increased responsibility for staff- highlighting the need for support and recognition!

Building an abundance mindset is not something that can be achieved overnight. It requires repeated exposure over a long period of time until it is gradually adopted as part of the food pantry culture.

The most important thing to remember about implementing an abundance mindset is that you can make a significant impact simply by adjusting the way you think and talk about hunger. Even if you’re not able to make any changes to systems or structures, considering the attitudes we approach hunger with can have a powerful impact on the experience of everyone within the food pantry community.

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

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The Importance of Understanding Hunger as a Spectrum

When I worked at a food pantry, I regularly heard two different narratives that brought people through our doors. The first was that using food assistance was a familiar or constant part of their survival, and the second was that they never believed in a million years that they would need food assistance.

The number of people coming from each of these backgrounds would ebb and flow based on the economy, reflecting the overall struggle to reconcile rising the cost of living with stagnant incomes. And of course, there were plenty of people who identified somewhere between these two narratives, yet their stories tended to receive less attention.

Right now, food pantries are seeing a significant increase in the number of people needing help who have never before set foot in a food pantry.

While we shouldn’t be surprised that people who previously identified as food secure are seeking out food assistance, it’s unfortunate that our anti-hunger programs are often ill-equipped to serve them.

Americans like to assume that people are poor or not- that there’s no middle ground. But the reality is that most people lie in that middle ground- surviving, but easily challenged by an unexpected expense or rising inflation.

There’s enormous stigma against food assistance in the U.S. which means that making a visit to a food pantry for the first time can feel intimidating, embarrassing, and shameful. How pantries operate and treat their shoppers can help alleviate these feelings or emphasize them.

Food pantries who assume they only serve people who have only known poverty fail their mission and their community. They create spaces that are much less welcoming, often less accessible, and perpetuate harmful stereotypes about hunger that work contrary to the mission of ending hunger.

It is essential that organizations start discussing what changing economic conditions do to their clientele and ensure they are well-prepared to serve everyone with abundance and grace.

How food pantries should prepare for shifting demographics:

  • Volunteer training. Volunteers often have assumptions about what people should look like if they visit a food pantry- they shouldn’t drive a nice or clean car, wear cute clothes, buy Starbucks, or have a new phone (this is also where racism often becomes glaringly apparent). I’ve seen volunteer assumptions about a shopper’s appearance directly impact the services they offer, even though none of these are actual indicators that someone doesn’t deserve food assistance (while also raising the fundamental question, who deserves to eat?).
  • Remember that poverty is not a yes/no concept. Poverty for one person looks very different than for another, and there’s no clear defining line between being poor and financially secure. Someone may not feel food insecure until they’ve emptied their bank account, while another may feel driven to stock up long before the cupboards are empty. We do our community a disservice when we try to define or limit food insecurity to a single experience.
  • Ensure systems are simple and accessible for everyone. Especially if your pantry depends on word of mouth, it’s easy to assume that people will be told by friends and families the tricks to shopping, like when to line up or what paperwork to bring or what foods to expect. Make sure that someone who knows nothing about your pantry can also access this information.

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

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Why Food Pantries Need Reliable Hours

It’s always a treat to leave work early. Who doesn’t love it when your manager decides that you should head home to enjoy some extra hours for yourself?

Everyone I know needs a vacation right now, but there are many workplaces that absolutely cannot change their hours or accommodate extra closures. Social Security offices, the ER, and food pantries are all examples of institutions that need to be reliably open. If they close early or unexpectedly, people lose out on essential or life-saving services.

The challenge is that Social Security and ER are staffed by paid professionals, whereas food pantries are predominantly run by volunteers donating their time. It’s much harder for a manager to stop them from leaving early when they want.

What are the consequences of a food pantry closing early?

In my experience, the shame and stigma of food assistance means that many people postpone visiting a food pantry until the last minute, when their shelves are literally empty and their stomachs grumbling. Our food pantry often saw a high number of first-time clients at the end of the day, possibly for this reason.

When a food pantry closes early, people who were counting on it for dinner that night are deprived of that meal and more. If you showed up for your first ever visit to a closed food pantry, it might also influence your enthusiasm for trying again.

Food pantry hours are often inaccessible. I’ve mentioned this many times before, but food pantry distribution hours usually cater to the schedules of volunteers rather than the needs of their community. Retirees often have very different availability than families facing food insecurity (who are usually working multiple jobs and acting as caregivers) which makes it extra difficult for people to access pantries.

If we want to fight hunger, it’s essential that food pantries offer reliable hours.

To be a useful service for shoppers, they need to know when the food pantry will be open. People will quickly stop coming if they find that it is ever closed when they thought it would be open.

Many people drive significant distances to pantries, and few have the resources to deplete their fuel for an unreliable resource. People experiencing hunger will seek out other pantries, if they have that option, or go hungry if there is nowhere else to access food.

Respecting the time of shoppers should also include minimizing the amount of time spent at the food pantry. An hour-long line indicates that the pantry either has inadequate shopping hours or a weak system of distribution (inducing clients to feel competitive). Examine your food flow policies and expand your hours to reduce the wait time. Long waits in line make food less accessible for seniors, parents, and people with disabilities while increasing tension and stress.

Action points for pantry leadership:

  • Maintain consistent and reliable hours. Posting schedule changes on social media is useful, but many food pantry clients may not use it, and these updates are only functional for the people who read the language that they are written in. Advertise where you will share unexpected closures ahead of time (website? voicemail? a sign on the door?) so that clients know how they can find out about schedule changes due to events like extreme weather.
  • Teach volunteers how important their role is. There is an urgency to this work that may not accompany other volunteer opportunities, and your organization needs to clearly articulate that. Although pantries should be tolerant of unexpected events, set a precedent that volunteers complete their entire shifts and NEVER close the pantry early. Consider implementing repercussions for volunteers who repeatedly no-show or leave early- the rest of your volunteers will thank you!
  • Hire enough staff so that operations and hours can continue normally if someone is sick or on vacation. If your food pantry operations depend on the presence of a specific individual, you are setting yourself up to fail when they inevitably get sick or leave (or get burnt out). Bonus points for paying your staff living wages to increase morale and retention!

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

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Does Your Food Pantry Serve Your Clients… or Your Volunteers?

I once became embroiled in a week-long argument with a colleague who was adamant that our food pantry’s primary mission was to serve our volunteers. They argued that our goal was to give community members positive and meaningful ways to support their neighbors, and that giving away food to people in need was the vehicle we used. My perspective that our food pantry should center people experiencing hunger as our primary beneficiaries was not welcome or accepted.  

As frustrating as this discussion was, it also wasn’t surprising.

Because many people believe food assistance is a privilege that must be earned rather than a right, it prioritizes giving food away rather than ending hunger.

This framework excuses subjugating the needs of people experiencing hunger to those of the volunteers supporting the effort. This is how organizations unintentionally transition into a volunteer-focused organization rather than a client centered pantry.

It’s more comfortable to focus on the givers than on the receivers. Our society carries lots of problematic assumptions about hunger and people living in poverty, and by focusing our efforts on volunteers (who generally have less lived experience), we don’t have to challenge these ideas or our biases.

Food pantries are chronically short of volunteers, and it is essential that we ensure our teams feel appreciated and valued. But too often, this attitude strays into favoritism.

This manifests in many ways, like pantries letting volunteers take food outside of distributions. This is against the rules everywhere from the national level down, but it’s still a common practice for pantries to turn a blind eye to a volunteer taking a dozen eggs to save themselves from going to the grocery store after their shift.

This attitude is further demonstrated in systems intended to minimize volunteers’ effort, like restocking shelves when volunteers want to, rather than when the shelves are empty (a frustration I recently heard from a volunteer/client about their local pantry.) While it’s less work for volunteers, it also means fewer options and less food for shoppers.

It’s also important to recognize a volunteer focus in the increasing prevalence of pantries hiring a security officer, who often costs significantly more and is more intimidating than giving staff and volunteers regular training in de-escalation and trauma-informed care. In most cases, the security officer is intended to increase the comfort of volunteers, rather than ensure all clients feel safe and welcome.

Efforts of a client-centered food pantry:

  • Seek out people with lived experience of hunger to add to the leadership team, staff, and volunteers. If it’s hard to do, then you’ve found a great opportunity to examine and rectify barriers to participation in your organization.
  • Make sure that you’re not demanding these individuals bear the sole burden of identifying and solving your pantry’s weaknesses. Make sure everyone does their homework in learning and studying the root causes of hunger and inequality, and exploring how to improve services. Don’t tokenize.
  • Examine your pantry hours. This is one of my pet peeves- food pantries are almost exclusively open at the convenience of volunteers, who tend to be wealthy retirees looking for something to occupy their weekday. This often means that food pantry distribution hours are inaccessible to people working full time jobs, acting as caregivers, or managing a household. Ask your clientele to take a survey if you can about what pantry times they can use, or experiment with adding weekend or evening hours.
  • Enforce at every possible moment the idea that everyone deserves to eat, and evaluate policies based on this concept. Do your rules align with increasing dignity, respect, and abundant access to food for everyone in need, or do they focus on the comfort and convenience of volunteers?

While I fully recognize that most pantries have a chronic shortage of volunteers, compromising your priorities for volunteer recruitment makes it harder to stay committed to your goal of ending hunger.

Organizations attract volunteers who agree with their values.

Focus on allowing your volunteers to do only what they want the way they want to, you’ll end up with a pantry that meets no one’s needs.

Prioritize serving clients the best that you can and you may have fewer volunteers, but at least you can be confident that they are empowering your organization to fight hunger with dignity, respect, and abundance.

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

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How to Help Children Fight Hunger

The winter holidays are approaching, which means many parents are looking for ways to engage with their children during the long vacation. My previous food pantries always saw a noticeable increase in the number of families, or parents reaching out on behalf of their older children, looking to volunteer at this time of year.

When it is done well, parents and children leave their volunteer service feeling enriched and impactful. When it is not handled gracefully, it can be harmful to everyone.

As a food pantry manager, I’ve fielded calls from dozens of parents looking for opportunities to help their children “appreciate how fortunate they are.” Essentially, the lesson they are trying to convey is how lucky their children are that they don’t have to use a food pantry. Framed this way, it emphasizes an “us/them” dichotomy that rarely fosters empathy or understanding of hunger. This attitude reinforces the attitude that visiting a food pantry is shameful, and further perpetuates the myth that poverty is a matter of luck or hard work, rather than systemic oppression and inequality.

I also regularly hear from families wanting to spend December helping the “less fortunate members of their community.” Again, this language emphasizes the differences between them and food pantry clients and may cement them in the minds of their children. Without thoughtful guidance, attitudes like this can perpetuate harmful attitudes around racism, poverty, and inequality.

This type of volunteering is performative and biased, even if well-intentioned. Poverty is not something to be gawked at, and this attitude is harmful to anti-hunger organizations working to emphasize dignity and the belief that everyone deserves to eat.

Volunteering as a family can be a hugely positive and formative experience, but service must be treated with delicacy and respect. Far too often, the people using services like food pantry clients are treated as a vehicle for volunteers to complete their “good deeds” or as examples to illustrate a specific assumption.

There are specific steps that parents and nonprofit organizations can take to fight these tendencies, increase the impact of their volunteer services, and help children develop an understanding of social justice that empowers them to be future changemakers.

For parents:

The post office dock in Lake Oswego, OR
  • Find volunteer projects that your children are excited about. I grew up volunteering for the National Letter Carriers Food Drive for over a decade, sorting food at the post office into boxes as the mail carriers brought it in during the annual event. My family had so much fun that we took over management of our post office and staffed the team exclusively with our school friends and their families. Finding activities that your children enjoy can foster long-term interest in volunteering and passion for the issues you’re working on (twenty years later, I’m doing the same work!)
  • When children are old enough to do direct service with clients, it needs to be voluntary.  The youth who thrive while volunteering are the ones who want to come. Sullen and grumpy children working with people living with hunger degrades the experience for everyone. When parents focus on the lesson or morality of service with reluctant children, it furthers their disengagement and disinterest, and I’ve seen this manifest many times as disrespect towards clients.

For pantries and anti-hunger organizations:

  • Be clear about and enforce age restrictions for volunteer roles. Almost every time I have been instructed by leadership to make an exception for a donor or volunteer’s grandchild, I find myself acting more as babysitter than pantry manager, or doing damage control with clients. It’s not worth it. If you can make some positions child-friendly- awesome! It’s also okay to have roles that are exclusively for adults.
  • Model language that combats the idea that you’re helping the “less fortunate” or “needy” in your marketing, literature, and conversations with volunteers. Your community will repeat your words, so deliberately discussing the systemic nature of poverty helps volunteers and potential volunteers adopt this idea over outdated assumptions.
  • In your volunteer orientation and training materials, introduce the root causes of hunger using language accessible to a twelve-year old. When there are children present, you won’t have to make any changes, and it’s likely that your adult volunteers will also benefit from the simplest framing of this immensely complex issue. This ensures everyone has a clear understanding of your mission and goals in a way that empowers your community.

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

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Food Pantries Fighting Hanger: Bring Snacks!

Have you ever been hangry?

A combination of hungry and angry, hangry is the perfect term for the short temper and dysregulation that accompanies the stress of hunger. I am the ultimate hangry person. When I get too hungry, my tolerance level for everything drops, and I essentially check out until I get some food. My friends and family know that once I’ve hit hangry, we’re not going to get anything done until the situation is rectified.

I know I’m not alone. Hangry is an increasingly popular term because it captures the peevishness that grows alongside hunger. We all know that no one is their best self when they are hangry.

This especially goes for food pantry clients and people facing food insecurity. Hunger amplifies stress, which can be further sparked when facing the indignities that can accompany seeking out food assistance.

Every food pantry I’ve worked at regularly served people who hadn’t eaten in too long. Whether they didn’t have an easy way to travel to the pantry or postponed their visit for as long as possible, it was not unusual to serve clients who hadn’t eaten in twelve hours or more. (I’ll never forget serving a young man at one of my first food pantries who hadn’t eaten in two days. That level of hunger and stress brings enormous urgency to everyone at the pantry.)

Asking someone feeling hangry to wait in a slow-moving line, fill out a tedious intake form, and pay attention to a boring orientation on pantry rules is a big and unfair ask.

Interactions between clients and volunteers can be tense. Volunteers are trying to adhere to the policies they’ve been taught as efficiently as possible, potentially without awareness of the other issues clients might be experiencing.

Clients are often trying to get in and out quickly with as much dignity as possible, which can run contrary to the systems volunteers seek to enforce.

Imposing strict rules on people dealing with hunger, stress, and other challenges can make these interactions harder.

Food pantries and meal sites all experience their fair share of challenging interactions. Our shoppers come with complex stories and high stress that can amplify triggers. But there are few scenarios where getting someone the food they need doesn’t make it better.

How can pantries do better at meeting clients’ immediate needs?

  • Provide snacks or small bites, like granola bars or an apple, at check in. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but the opportunity for someone to eat before heading into what is regularly a stressful situation can alleviate some of the anxiety. It also helps build a more welcoming atmosphere.
  • Allow people to eat in the pantry. This doesn’t mean you have to let people assemble a meal right then and there, but snacking while shopping should be welcomed! Snacking at one of my previous pantries made a big difference in keeping children calm and quiet, which enabled their guardians to enjoy a more relaxed shopping experience and alleviate everyone’s stress.

It’s not too much to ask people to clean up after themselves, and your pantry should already have several waste bins distributed throughout the room. While you may still have to clean up an occasional mess, it should be preferable to escalating unnecessary conflict.

  • Teach volunteers to check for clients who might need extra support. Even if you don’t have enough snacks for everyone, having something available when necessary can make an enormous impact. I can’t count the number of times where my pantry saw an escalating situation, but getting our shopper a granola bar and a juice box immediately relieved the tension. Also, recognize the emotional labor that goes into diffusing these difficult situations.
  • Food pantries often serve high numbers of people with specific nutritional requirements. Being equipped to support someone with low blood sugar with emergency snacks should be an expectation rather than an aspiration of all anti-hunger organizations.
  • Model healthy self-care by ensuring that staff and volunteers also get breaks for snacks and lunch. I once worked at a pantry where I rarely got a lunch break, and it was often my volunteers who pointed out that I needed to eat when my mood started to go south. Modeling self-care helps ensure that everyone is better-prepared and more thoughtful about supporting our neighbors through the next challenge that arises.

I often see pantries seeking to develop a more efficient, professional atmosphere through increasingly strict rules and official looking paperwork. It’s these same pantries who experience increased conflict by placing unreasonable and inflexible expectations on their community.

Food pantries strongly benefit from a friendly, casual attitude over formality. It is entirely possible to develop a professional, respectful food pantry that has best practices for supporting their clients rather than asserting their authority. Offering snacks is a great first step.

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

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Keeping Food Pantries Safe Spaces for Everyone

In conversation with several food pantries this fall, I’ve noticed a common theme. As they serve a rising number of clients with high anxiety and urgent needs, organizations are starting to hire staff whose sole responsibility is pantry security and rule enforcement. While recognizing the need for safety, it’s worth examining this trend and the potential impact.

It’s important that everyone feels safe at a food pantry. Building an inclusive community depends on establishing a physically safe space. Because food pantries serve such a wide diversity of people, this can sometimes be a challenge.

Conflict is not uncommon. People experiencing food insecurity often endure trauma, high stress, and sometimes mental health and substance abuse issues. Hunger is a traumatic experience both mentally and physically, and it’s essential that we respond with compassion and empathy rather than force. All my previous food pantries had occasional visitors we had to navigate carefully because of the potential for unsafe or violent behavior. It is important that food pantry staff have an established protocol for how to manage these interactions while ensuring that everyone feels safe and welcome.

Pantries need to carefully consider how they build a safe space. Most food pantries are run by people of priviledge with no lived experience of poverty, which means they are more likely to trust law enforcement personnel. Many other communities feel less safe with an official in uniform present, which means bringing a security officer into the pantry does not necessarily build a more welcoming environment. Whatever you believe about the police, it’s important to remember that everyone does not agree with you, which influences the conditions you facilitate.

Depending on your location and demographics, fears about immigration enforcement can also impact who feels safe around a security officer. Many food pantry advocates remember the decrease in Latine clients we saw during the height of President Trump’s anti-immigrant deportations. We should expect similar situations to arise again.

In many scenarios, dedicated security officers exacerbate conflict by responding with combative rather than de-escalatory tactics. While having a staff member trained and skilled in building a safe space should be every pantry’s goal, a security officer is unlikely to be the most productive response for building a safe and welcoming environment.

Here are some strategies for de-escalating conflicts and maintaining a safe space:

  • The biggest mistake that food pantries make is treating poor behavior like a deliberate effort to be difficult rather than a symptom of trauma, fear, or mental illness. Responding to these issues as transgressions that need to be punished fuels confrontation rather than alleviates it. People respond with the same level of energy we direct at them, which means aggressive responses evoke aggressive answers.

Instead, train your team to prioritize above all else that your visitors are food insecure individuals who need help and support. Trauma-informed care recognizes that hunger isn’t the only challenge they’re bringing in the door. Start by checking in with the shopper to see if they have specific needs that help can resolve the issue- it often is as simple as a snack or bottle of water. I can’t emphasize enough how many times getting someone a snack resolved any issues.

  • Remember the power imbalance inherent to food pantries. Staff and volunteers literally control whether our clients will get to eat today or not. I’ve met teams who’ve grown casual about this authority, which fosters a lack of empathy for the needs of shoppers. Everyone deserves to eat.
  • Have as few rules as possible for clients to violate. Some of the pantries with the highest levels of conflict also have the most rules about eligibility, shopping style, or food choices and amounts. When we set up situations where we prioritize discipline and obedience, we build opportunities for conflict. What policies are nonnegotiable and which are flexible based on the situation?
  • Anytime you need to escalate a concern with a client, take it outside of the pantry space even if that means waiting until they are done shopping. If they get angry or threatening, this helps keep everyone else safe.

Volunteers should never participate in confrontation with clients. This should be a trained staff responsibility only, which helps maintain a positive experience for volunteers and avoids fueling negative attitudes towards shoppers who are struggling.

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

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The Future of Hunger in America

No matter how you feel about the outcome of this election, the reality is that if Trump implements the policies he has proposed, food insecurity is likely to significantly increase.

Mass deportation (or even just threats of) will decimate the agriculture community which depends on migrant labor. This will contribute to both food shortages and increased costs.

Separating nutrition programs from agriculture within the Farm Bill, as proposed by Project 2025 (Chapter 10), removes any incentive for compromise between parties and is a deliberate move towards slashing SNAP. (This one really frightens me.)

Further proposals within the document recommend reinstating SNAP work requirements, which are proven to increase hunger and have no positive impact on employment.

The administration also plans to target Universal School Meals, which over the last year have provided ample proof that nourished children have better outcomes. The list goes on.

It’s true we have no idea what will happen, but these are the policies that have been proposed.

What this means is that we can expect significant changes in America’s hunger landscape. The resources we have and the policies we uphold are likely to fluctuate alongside a volatile economy. We face uncertainty, fear, and an increasing disinterest in evidence-based policy. Anti-hunger work is going to get harder.

One of my biggest frustrations of working in the anti-hunger community is that we tend to be reactive rather than proactive. Food bank and pantry staff are overworked, underpaid, and under-resourced, which makes it incredibly hard to plan long-term. But long-term planning is the only way we will make a difference, because ending hunger depends on ending it tomorrow and not just today.

We can amplify our impact if we are prepared for the future, which is why I’m outlining steps that food pantries should take now to prepare for increasing need.

What your food pantry can start doing today to prepare for a changing landscape:

  • Conduct a SWOT analysis. Does your pantry have the capacity to grow if demand for your services increases? By how much? What are the obstacles to that growth?

I fully recognize and empathize that we are entering the busiest time of year for this industry, but doing this now is the only way we can prepare for future changes that could very well overwhelm our services.

  • Clarify your organizational values. While I’m sure you’ve got beautiful mission statements on the wall of your pantry, it is important for food pantries to be clear about whether they are a safe space and who they are dedicated to serving. The Trump administration has shown enthusiasm for attacking marginalized communities like BIPOC, LGBTQ+, migrants, and others. People within these communities are rightfully concerned about their safety in all public spaces, given the increase in hate crimes we saw during his last administration. Food pantries can be proactive by deciding if they are safe for these communities. If you want to keep serving these communities, you need to prove they are welcome.

I know that there are plenty of organizations and staff that aren’t interested in being these safe spaces. It’s important that everyone share this information- so advocates know where we can safely refer our clients and direct resources. If your pantry doesn’t want to serve LBGTQ+ shoppers, I certainly don’t want to send them to you.

  • Build safe spaces. This means establishing a staff and volunteer team committed to genuinely welcoming vulnerable communities. Teach your team about the importance of pronouns. Source culturally specific foods, and celebrate them. Do your shoppers see their communities represented among volunteers, staff, and leadership? A future blog will specifically examine building safe physical environments and the trend of food pantries hiring security staff. If our neighbors are fearful of law enforcement, a security agent can deter them from seeking food assistance.
  • Assess eligibility. Who do you serve, and who do you have capacity to serve? One of the major food access programs in my region uses federal welfare eligibility as their primary qualifier for services. What happens if the administration adds requirements that cause people to lose benefits? I will be looking for whether this organization changes their eligibility requirements, or if they allow the disqualification of thousands of their shoppers because of federal changes. Who do you serve, and/or who do you have capacity to serve? Who might need more help in the future?
  • Teach your volunteers and broader community about the value of a well-nourished world. When everyone is well-fed, we are all stronger. Policies that eliminate food access resources are intended to punish individuals for behaving differently than we think they should. But these efforts to deprive our neighbors of the food they need to survive do not help anyone. They hurt us all.

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

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How We Talk About Hunger Matters

At one of my past food pantries, I worked with a collection of predominantly older, wealthy, white volunteers without lived experience of hunger. They were interested in addressing hunger, as demonstrated by serving at the pantry, but many entered our organization centering fault and responsibility for hunger on the individuals experiencing it.

Working in this job gave me valuable experience learning how to teach these volunteers to reevaluate their assumptions, but also showed me the importance of developing a framework to facilitate this growth. Few people change their mind after a few conversations, but can slowly internalize and adopt ideas they are consistently exposed to.

By repeatedly emphasizing important concepts of fighting hunger, I found I can incrementally change their interpretation of food insecurity.

The more I do this work, the more I recognize the value of being thoughtful in how we frame hunger. How we think about it directly impacts the decisions we make when choosing how to address it, and if we are tactical, we can amplify our impacts through the words we use to discuss it.

Concepts to embrace:

  • We never know the whole story, and it’s never our business. It’s important to start having these conversations before a situation occurs where volunteers need to be redirected. I want my volunteers to react with empathy rather than judgement for every person who walked up to our door, and that means spending a lot of time brainstorming all the possibilities and challenges that can force someone into food insecurity. (Situations such as someone driving up in a nice car or carrying expensive belongings often prompt the need for this conversation.) It’s also a good opportunity to discuss the situations that force people into food insecurity, rather than their choices.
  • The resources offered by food pantries/ banks/ emergency assistance programs are ALWAYS inadequate. I regularly remind our volunteers of all the essentials we don’t have, which encourages them to treat our shoppers more empathetically. This helps our volunteers respond with greater compassion when working with someone dealing with panic, trauma, or fear whose needs can’t be met by the organization. It also produces an extra sense of accomplishment and pride when we are able to provide more of the support that someone needs.
  • Everyone deserves to eat. It’s a simple concept, but one that needs to be continuously reinforced by fighting cultural assumptions that food must be earned. People without jobs deserve to eat. People dealing with addiction deserve to eat. People with criminal records deserve to eat. My volunteers and I, and indeed, any food pantry or food bank staff, have no right to make judgements otherwise. Exploring the qualifiers we carry in our own minds can help volunteers reassess this value.

Fundamentally, we need food to live, and basing our work in this idea makes it harder to oppose.

Concepts to avoid:

  • Anything relating hunger to food shortages. Hunger is not a food shortage problem. Even in famine-stricken areas, the wealthy still eat. In my food pantries, I make sure to regularly have conversations about the barriers to getting food to the people who need it, including the inefficiencies and indignities of food banking itself. This helps center the conversation around poverty and oppression rather than bad luck or personal responsibility.
  • Treating hunger as an individual choice. No one makes bad decisions that leads them to food insecurity. People often make decisions different from how I would make them, but that is based on our different backgrounds, circumstances, and understanding of the world around us.

We all have to make tradeoffs, and it’s important we not penalize people for making the best choice they can.

Everyone is looking for a way to make enough money to thrive, and everyone has different tools helping or hindering them from doing so. Consistently talking about hunger as a systemic problem helps redirect our societal tendencies to treat hunger as a personal failure.

  • Relating poverty and work ethic or effort. Our society embraces the idea that hard work begets success, which allows us to pat ourselves on the back while ignoring the struggles of people we don’t think are working hard enough. This attitude justifies choosing not to support others with the idea that they need to “earn” their basic needs. The reality is, most people experiencing hunger and poverty have very few opportunities to work harder or earn more money. As long as wages fail to match up with costs of living, discrimination continues, and inequality persists, all the hard work in the world will have little opportunity to lift people up.

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

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Healthy Foods Aren’t Always Fresh: Improving Access

I recently found myself wrestling with the use of the words “healthy” versus “fresh.” In the food access (and wellness) fields, we often use these terms interchangeably when talking about diet, but my ruminations made me consider how it might not always be the best practice in the context of food justice.

Fresh foods are those that have undergone minimal processing, and usually need to be consumed shortly after harvest or collection. Fresh foods are generally considered healthy because they are generally whole foods without any of the additives that define our industrial food supply. They offer the simplest opportunity to consume our daily nutrients.

While most fresh foods are healthy, not all healthy foods are fresh. When it comes to fighting hunger and building food access, this is an important distinction.

Fresh foods can be hard to access. The weather in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, has quickly transitioned to fall, which means my garden is rapidly declining in productivity and many farmers’ markets are soon closing for the winter. Fresh foods will become harder to access as the season progresses, and the options at the grocery store will have to travel greater distances with variable quality.

When we place an emphasis on healthy foods being exclusively fresh, we add extra barriers for individuals who may not be able to access this option. At every food pantry I’ve ever worked at, I’ve encountered shoppers who were apologetic about their “bad diet” because they didn’t have a refrigerator or cooking capacity to choose fresh foods, regardless of what else they were eating.

Consistently accessing fresh foods requires easy access because it has a limited shelf-life. Food pantry clients often limit their shopping excursions to once or twice per month to minimize time and transportation costs, which means they only eat fresh food for a couple days after each trip.

Fresh foods also often require refrigeration and extra preparation to use, which can be beyond the capacity for someone with limited storage, inadequate tools, no time, or physical limitations. When we insist that eating fresh food is the only way to eat healthy, we mislead too many of our neighbors into believing that they are eating wrong.

When we teach people that their only options are inadequate, we foster discouragement and defeat. Food shaming never improves outcomes.

It is entirely possible to eat healthy without fresh foods. In many scenarios, preserved options are more nutrient dense because they were harvested and preserved at the peak of ripeness.

How can we foster access to healthy foods without focusing on fresh?

  • Many pantries have started to implement systems for helping clients recognize healthier options, like the Supporting Wellness At Pantries (SWAP) system. It’s a simple and efficient way to uplift the nutritional qualities of shelf-stable goods common to pantries. This helps highlight the value of preserved options without comparing them to fresh foods.
  • Start these conversations with staff and volunteers to ensure they’re familiar with barriers to fresh food and the value of preserved options. Our world is very eager to find a magic bullet for health, and it’s important that volunteers don’t reinforce this idea in the pantry. Presenting a challenge to develop healthy choices from the shelf-stable section can be a great learning experience for volunteers, and help them think about the nuances of food insecurity a little more.
  • Embrace frozen foods. It was revolutionary when one of my previous pantries recognized the potential of frozen options. Our supply constantly changed, but having a spot to consistently offer frozen vegetables and a mix of other options was an efficient option for clients to load up. While this does demand an extra piece of equipment, there are many organizations (and even food banks) that offer funding and grants for the purchase of freezers and other tools to facilitate frozen distribution.
  • Focus less on individual healthy or unhealthy foods, and more on the meals they can create. Healthy food is more than the sum of its nutrients, and we do our communities a disserve when we adopt a black/white perspective. Health comes from the security of knowing where your next meal is coming from, from the joy of connecting with your community, and the confidence of nourishing your body with what it needs.
  • It is important to recognize we should continue increasing access to fresh foods. One option is for pantries to remove their limits on how often clients can visit (whether they be monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly). Food pantry produce rarely lasts very long, so increasing pantry access would significantly improve fresh options, as long as the pantry has the systems, inventory, and paradigm to support such a move.

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

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Making the Most of Your Food Drive

As we head into the holiday seasons, heralded by the arrival of twenty-foot-tall skeletons and inflatable black cats, most anti-hunger organizations are finalizing plans for their winter food drive. Food drives have long been a staple of food access work- they are a great mechanism for collecting food while increasing community engagement and awareness of their mission. Nearly all food access organizations utilize this tool.

But there are significant shortcomings and challenges that accompany food drives. In this post, I’ll share what some of those are, and ways that organizations and community members can navigate them.

Food drives are fantastic for many reasons. They bring much-wanted variety to a food supply that can often grow monotonous when depending on bulk food bank donations. They offer a tangible way for community members to connect with your organization. Personalizing donations are a beautiful entry point for neighbors to have discussions about the reality of food insecurity. Sorting donations is a great task for the huge influx of volunteers that nonprofits often see during the holiday season.

But these same benefits also present challenges.

Most food banks have specific food needs, based on what items they’ve been able to source elsewhere, and these needs can vary month to month. Unless it’s an incredibly targeted food drive (I’ve seen breakfast cereal or peanut butter specific events), food drives may not meet the food pantry’s highest food needs. While all donations are impactful, targeted aid is the most effective for fighting hunger.

The foods most in demand are often the most expensive, which means they are also the least likely to be donated. My personal mission is always to increase donations of spices and seasonings, but their high cost makes them some of the least donated ingredients. While I enthusiastically encourage people to donate foods that make them happy (because it helps remind them that people experiencing hunger are just like them), this builds community engagement more than an appropriate food supply.

Food drives are also a LOT of work.

My previous pantries supplied donors with donation barrels that we would try to both deliver and pick up. This required a volunteer or staff member to make extra trips during our busiest time of year, generally in less-than-ideal weather conditions. It felt worth it when we picked up hundreds of pounds of food, but often one or two hours of driving and days of coordination yielded little more than twenty or thirty pounds. While the donor absolutely deserved our praise and gratitude, this is not an ideal use of time. Many organizations hosting food drives also like to provide personalized signage and food requests, the development of which often falls on to food pantries. The amount of labor that goes into facilitating a food drive may not produce a similar payoff.

Once the food has been received, it needs to be organized. Delivered in overflowing boxes, bags, and barrels, food banks or pantries must sort it into categories that allow them to efficiently manage their distribution, be it in prepacked boxes or on grocery-style shelves. This responsibility usually falls to volunteer groups, who often sign up for one-time shifts during the holidays.

Under the supervision of a staff member, volunteers evaluate the food to ensure it’s safe for distribution (inevitably someone donates homemade preserves, goods without a label, or a bottle of alcohol- all unallowable options that must be discarded). These types of shifts are often fun but highly chaotic and have varying degrees of efficiency for the amount of work that actually gets done. While they are a perfect way to get volunteers into the door of their local food pantry, they are less successful at helping these organizations meet their day-to-day responsibilities of serving clients.

Additionally, this labor- and time-intensive task can mean that donations sit taking up space until they can be addressed. Sometimes this means organizations cannot accept other donations until food drive is sorted and distributed. This can be a significant problem for pantries with limited storage capacity.

How can we make food drives more functional?

Food banks (and some pantries) have significantly more buying power than the average individual, which means donated funds can buy much more food than an individual in their local grocery store.

One of the most efficient ways to maximize capacity is through virtual food drives– where neighbors donate funds, or even choose to buy specific items which ensure the food bank gets the best rates as well as the foods they most need.

Transitioning food drives to virtual, while still leaving room and opportunity for the donation of physical goods, is ultimately more accessible and efficient for everyone.

The one challenge this leaves is it reduces opportunities for large groups to volunteer together with food pantries, who often cannot accommodate their size or offer responsibilities to work together during day-to-day operations. In this scenario, food banks who do still have the capacity and need for larger shifts should step up to ensure these volunteers have a place to channel their energy while also connecting them with impact on the local level.

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

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Hunger is Political

September is Hunger Action Month, a time to raise awareness about the prevalence and reality of hunger in America. I firmly believe that the way we think about hunger is the primary obstacle to solving it, so this month I am focusing on challenging the assumptions we’ve been conditioned to accept, and offer new tools for taking those ideas out into the world.

Several years ago, I worked as a volunteer coordinator at a major food bank. I was lucky enough to start there just as we rolled out a new advocacy strategy, which meant my colleagues and I were responsible for introducing it to the community. As part of the volunteer repack shifts, we began to develop discussion points for engaging volunteers in anti-hunger advocacy.

While respecting the lobbying limitations of a nonprofit, we initiated conversations about the relationship between hunger and housing, healthcare, racial justice, and other issues. While some volunteers were receptive, many others were deeply irritated or even offended that we mentioned such problems.

“Stay in your lane! Hunger isn’t supposed to be political.”

I regularly received feedback that people volunteer with the food bank specifically because hunger “wasn’t political.” The second we started talking about how increasing affordable housing or accessible healthcare would fight hunger, we crossed a line.

The reality is, hunger is intensely political. The food insecurity rates of our neighbors and communities are directly related to the choices that we, from individuals to nations, make every day.

Hunger does not exist in a silo. No one experiencing hunger faces that as their only challenge. Hunger is intimately related to housing, healthcare, wages, racism, discrimination, gender, childcare, and a million other issues. If we really want to end hunger, then we need an organized plan to address poverty and all that encompasses.

If you are angry with your food bank for talking politics, then you aren’t really fighting hunger.

You’re fighting for the status quo.  

Every public policy related to hunger. But while hunger is political, it doesn’t have to be partisan.

For example, libraries offer a space for people to use computers and the internet for free, which can be essential for applying to jobs or accessing resources. Losing this option can heavily impact the food security of an individual. The library bond on your ballot is a hunger issue.

Many, many people rely on public transportation to get to work, buy groceries, and carry out their daily life. Without a reliable way to get around, people go hungry, work can’t get done, and the economy suffers. The loud city bus your neighbor complains about is a hunger issue.

Many our food pantry clients have jobs, but are still forced to live in their cars, shelters, or couch surf. Without housing options within their budgets, they struggle to maintain a job, stay safe, and eat healthy food. Food pantries and SNAP are designed for people with kitchens, which meant we have fewer options to offer these people who go hungry as a result. Affordable housing is a hunger issue.

Voting is one of the most important ways we provide feedback and guidance to our government. Increasing barriers to vote (like we’re currently seeing) means we silence valuable opinions and lived experience that help shape stronger communities. Voting rights are a hunger issue.

It takes bravery for anti-hunger organizations to publicly discuss these relationships. And the legalities of nonprofits and politics make many organizations wary of crossing a line. But if we really want to solve hunger, we can’t limit our advocacy efforts to just food access.  

Here’s how anti-hunger organizations can begin engaging with the bipartisan politics of hunger in their communities:

  • Host voter registration drives. This is a great entry point because it doesn’t explicitly connect hunger with politics, but it still opens the door for action from clients and volunteers alike. There is also an enormous amount of misinformation and voter suppression this year, so providing reliable resources and support is an incredibly valuable option.
  • Incorporate clients referrals to partner organizations that can help them with other issues like housing, healthcare, childcare, education, and other challenges. Make sure your volunteers know about these relationships, and why they are important. Every opportunity that our community sees a connection between hunger and other symptoms of poverty helps strengthen our understanding of the challenge we face.
  • Develop systems where your public-facing employees can have these conversations. Does volunteer orientation discuss how hunger relates to other challenges in your region? Start small, in one-on-one or small group discussions for practice, before bringing it to bigger volunteer shifts. Don’t try this unless leadership at every level believes and is ready to support the intersectionality of hunger. You’re likely to irritate or lose those volunteers who maintain that these discussions are too political- make sure to support your staff when this happens, but also remember that it also builds a stronger team who is better prepared to take decisive actions towards ending hunger.

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

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Where Do I Find Super Volunteers?

Every food pantry has at least one super volunteer. The person who is always happy to fill in when someone else cancels at the last minute, who knows how to work in every position, and acts as a compassionate mentor for new volunteers. The volunteer who just laughs and rolls up their sleeves when you hesitantly ask them to take on a nasty job like rinsing the compost bins or sweeping under the produce-sorting table.

Often, these volunteers seem to appear organically. Someone excited to have an impact on their community, enthusiastic about the policies they’re following, and happy to connect with the people around them. At every pantry I’ve ever worked at, there was always one volunteer (or several when I was lucky) about whom we’d wistfully say, “I wish we could clone you,” and “I need ten of [that person.]”

But it’s not just luck that finds you the best volunteers.

Organizational mission, culture, and practices have a significant influence on the community members we attract and retain.

Here are some simple steps to help you find and keep the volunteers you need most.

  • Be clear on your mission. Volunteers seek out organizations that align with their own interests and passions. You’re more likely to find volunteers that are aligned with your mission if the public is clear on what that is.

If reducing food waste is your goal, advertise that. If you’re focused on social justice and root causes of hunger, don’t be shy in sharing. This helps volunteers identify any mismatch of values early on. A volunteer who wants to minimize food waste may not be a fit for a pantry focused on maintaining the highest quality of food and asks them to throw out options they deem usable.

            I once knew a food pantry leader reluctant to clarify the mission for this same reason- they didn’t want to risk committing to any values that might deter someone from volunteering. This is how we ended up with volunteers inconsistently enforcing policies, increased conflict, and excessive staff energy spent on volunteer supervision and mediation. If we had clarified our specific values and goals, our volunteer network might have been smaller, but healthier and more productive.

  • Find teaching opportunities. Every quiet moment should be an educational opportunity for volunteers, which requires having staff who are knowledgeable and ready to share. Although more intensive, one-on-one conversations are where your volunteers are most likely to have an a-ha moment about your work! It can be easy for food pantries to neglect the value of continuing education for staff, so make sure you’re paying fair wages and not burning them out– your volunteers will notice in the quality of interaction and education.
  • Enforce client dignity. Like any industry, we all have encounters with people who are challenging. Food pantry clients are likely to carry trauma and stress, which can make interactions harder and bias our attitudes. Proactively working to uplift our community is a habit that needs to be fostered and developed through our language choices. It’s tempting to say, “that client was annoying,” but making the transition to “I was challenged by that interaction” or “I was getting frustrated in that conversation,” avoids fostering an adversarial attitude.

Any time a volunteer has a negative comment about a client, I try to find an alternative idea that puts them in a positive light. Hearing, “they took way too much food,” I respond with, “they must feel so secure to have that food for their family right now. I can’t imagine the relief.” “That person was so rude today” answered with, “I hope their day is better now that they know their family is having dinner tonight.”

  • Prioritize making a positive impact on the community you serve. When we amplify impact, it helps us move away from the stationary goal of providing food. This attitude also makes it easier to embrace new strategies, because of the widely accepted goal for progress.

Volunteers are notoriously reluctant to change, but by incorporating a commitment to outcomes rather than inputs, you can make it a little easier to support the evolution of your program.

Consistent, positive messaging from leadership is infectious, and the most powerful opportunity we have for defining the culture of our anti-hunger organization. Practice enough, and your volunteers will start to internalize this way of thinking and pass it on to new volunteers as it becomes a standard part of the organization.

This attitude is difficult to get started, but through repetition, it’s possible to build momentum and establish your organization as one where the volunteers are known to be well-educated on food insecurity, compassionate about the stigma of visiting a food pantry, and enthusiastic about stepping up when and where you need it.

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

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Why Don’t Single Moms Deserve More Support?

At one of my previous food pantries, we served a woman nearly every week who came to shop with three boys under eight in tow. Cheerful and rambunctious, they behaved expectedly- walking alongside mom quickly devolved into a fast-paced game of tag around the produce table that made us all a little bit nervous. We did our best to keep everyone safe and comfortable but recognized the challenges of running errands with three small children. After waiting in line outside for an hour, it was no surprise they had energy to burn off.

Nearly every time she visited, a volunteer would sidle up to me and comment on how this mom needed to do a better job managing her kids. Not only was she not able to provide them with the food they needed, but she was letting them behave disrespectfully in the pantry!

In the context of a food pantry, rollicking happy children were an indicator of their mother’s inadequacies as a caregiver.

It absolutely would have been easier for everyone- Mom, my pantry staff and volunteers, and other clients if she hadn’t brought her children, but parents rarely have that flexibility. Single parents even less so.

(Today I’m considering the stigma against single moms specifically, but single parents everywhere deal with many of the same barriers.)

Single mothers are a controversial demographic when it comes to welfare and anti-poverty efforts. While society is generally enthusiastic about fighting childhood hunger, we hold much more complex attitudes about their mothers.

Our society has a specific vision of who deserves food assistance and welfare recognized as “the deserving poor.” These are the individuals we believe deserve assistance because they are unable to change their own situation- namely, children and seniors. Unable to participate in the labor market, these two groups are deemed helpless to conditions around them and are therefore deserving of additional aid.

The problem with creating the deserving poor is that it automatically fosters the idea that there is an undeserving poor- people who do have the capacity to escape poverty, if only they try hard enough. This perspective assumes that economic mobility is possible with enough effort (despite ample evidence to the contrary), largely blaming poverty on the individuals living it.

Single mothers fall somewhere in between the deserving and undeserving poor: no one believes that children should go hungry, but our society also is reluctant to support people for choices we disapprove of, and single motherhood is one of those.

Childcare is still primarily viewed as the domain of women, and societal expectations are that mothers meet all their children’s needs. When women aren’t the perfect parent, they’re seen as a failure.

 (Read How the Other Half Eats by Priya Fielding-Singh, PhD for a great analysis of this.)

Distrust of single mothers is also amplified by the concept of the welfare queen. The pervasive myth that women have additional children simply to maximize public benefits colors the support our society is willing to provide. Culturally, we tend to want to punish women for their choice to become a parent rather than lift them up with the support they need.

How can your anti-hunger efforts support single parents?

Design kid friendly pantries. Single parents often have no other option than to take their children shopping. In my wildest dreams, pantries would have a free childcare option or at least a designated play space, but I recognize our world’s not ready for this yet. Baring that, there are child-friendly steps pantries can take:

  • Practice flexibility if you have long lines. Do clients have to stay in their spot in line, or can you switch to a number or lottery system? Any parent of a toddler knows that waiting quietly in a long line (full of anxious, worried, and stressed individuals) can be hard, and some parents may prefer to go hungry than face that challenge with their child.
  • Offer shopping carts with a child seat, not just baskets, to help parents contain small or active children.
  • Maintain a safe space for kids to play. One of my pantries had a bookshelf for donated books that we allowed children to take, and it was not unusual for a parent to have to drag their older child away from a book at the end of their visit. I loved it!
  • Flexible hours– including accessibility during school hours, evenings, and weekends. This makes pantries more available for parents who may need to come when their kids are in school, when another person is able to watch them, or when they have the time and flexibility.

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

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When Are Clients Too Entitled to Food?

This week, I heard someone who works in the anti-hunger field ask a speaker how to handle (and prevent) food pantry shoppers feeling “entitled” to food, and I can’t stop thinking about all the ways to unpack this concern.

Anti-hunger and food banking staff do this work to have a positive impact on the world, with the bold aspiration of eliminating hunger entirely. With a fundamental ambition to do good, it can be hard to tolerate situations and people that don’t leave us with a warm glow.

When these interactions don’t feel good, it’s easy to justify a defensive response to preserve our feelings of appreciation and impact. Staff and volunteers should feel this way- but not at the expense of the people we serve.

Every food pantry client IS entitled to food.

The power differential that exists between food pantry staff and clients unfortunately offers an opportunity to demand behaviors from people experiencing hunger– commonly humility, gratitude, and submission. Giving free food to an individual who behaves in this manner is much easier and more gratifying than someone complaining about the selection, quantity, or model of distribution.

While some attitudes and behaviors are harder to deal with than others, everyone deserves to eat, no matter what. While it’s easy to say, “they can just go somewhere else” to avoid challenges or confrontation, this is false.

Finding transportation to another location may be impossible, distribution hours might not work with their schedule, previous incidents of harassment at other pantries may make them uncomfortable returning, or other organizations might not have resources that meet client nutritional or cultural needs.

I’ve heard tearful stories of food pantry clients being turned away because they didn’t have proof of address, citing fears of exploitation, or because an intake form was completed incorrectly, and they were accused of fraud. I’ve listened to panicked tales of waiting in line for an hour only to see the pantry doors close the moment the distribution ends, leaving clients still waiting without food.

These experiences elicit anger and frustration from people experiencing hunger, but this very justified emotional reaction too often leads to accusations of entitlement.

Believing that people aren’t entitled to food is synonymous with the idea that everyone doesn’t deserve to eat.

How do anti-hunger organizations perpetuate the idea that people aren’t entitled to food?

Are you open to criticism?

Defensiveness is often the first reaction to a complaint, especially when it’s something we’ve poured our heart and soul into making perfect. It’s entirely human to want to react to any attitude besides humility with deflection. As we’ve been conditioned to believe that hunger is an individual failure, it’s a logical next step to treat criticism as an attitude problem rather than a genuine concern. But dismissive attitudes towards shoppers can foster environments which consistently disregard the needs, and even the humanity, of the people we intend to help.

Catch your malicious compliance.

Are you holding your shoppers to the letter of the law, or the spirit? If someone was in line before you closed, were they really too late or can you still serve them? If a mistake is found in their paperwork, can you help them fix it rather than accusing them of ill-intentions? If someone is struggling to self-regulate, can you give them a granola bar and a bottle of water before accusing them of disrespect? Setting your guests up to fail is an active way to increase conflict, resentment, and hostility on all sides of the relationship between organization and community. Maybe your policies are inflexible for a reason, but I’ve too often witnessed their enforcement as a tool to demand submission from shoppers, which further models the acceptability of this attitude to volunteers.

If someone doesn’t get food from you, they might not eat at all.

Imagine the panic and fear of having your food security depend on someone else’s interpretation of your attitude. Consider the humiliation that accompanies the demand to humble yourself to deserve food to feed your family tonight. If we want to build anti-hunger systems that actually fight hunger, we need practices and models that support, rather than subjugate, people experiencing hunger. It is entirely possible, while uplifting the dignity and respect of every person experiencing hunger, to ensure everyone is served well. De-escalation techniques are a vital resources, and every direct service organization should host regular trainings so that everyone has the tools they need for their community to thrive.

Of course, this work is more fun when everyone is kind, humble, and deferential. But demanding this behavior implies that people experiencing hunger are only deserving of what we decide they’ve earned. Everyone is entitled to food, and it’s up to us as anti-hunger advocates to figure out systems that honor this reality.

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

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Why Kindness Doesn’t Fight Hunger

A media source once visited one of my food pantries and requested interviews with some of our shoppers. My favorite moment was when a client told the interviewer with great enthusiasm, “They’re not just nice to me- they’re nice to EVERYONE!”

This resonated because I regularly heard stories about the experience our clients had at other food pantries- and kindness seemed in short supply. In most cases it was not that volunteers or staff at other organizations were explicitly rude- it was that those seeking emergency food assistance are sensitive to judgement, disingenuity, and prejudice. There is already such stigma against using emergency food assistance internalized by both recipients and distributors, that without conscious effort, it’s easy to commit microaggressions even while acting kind and welcoming.

No one wants to go to the food pantry.

I have never met someone who preferred to be handed discarded, cast-off, or expired food at a food pantry over having autonomy over their own grocery shopping.

Of course, many people are grateful for the much-needed help in feeding their families, but even the most dignified food pantry experience isn’t better than the power to choose what and how much your family wants to eat without restriction. (And of course, no one needs to be grateful for food.)

This reality influences every food pantry visit. Recognizing that no one wants to be there, it’s essential for organizations to ensure that they’re sensitive to the baggage that accompanies such a task.

While institutional policies impact the food pantry experience, volunteer attitudes and actions carry the greatest weight when it comes to building a safe space for people experiencing hunger. Having volunteers truly committed to compassion, kindness, and empathy is the most effective way to establish a dignified food pantry environment but is no simple achievement.

Even when volunteers are kind and welcoming, it can be easy to unconsciously reflect problematic attitudes through their actions. By building respectful foundational attitudes, you can help your volunteers practice empathy at every shift.

Assume good intentions.

Remind volunteers that we never know the whole story of why someone is at the food pantry- and it’s none of our business. If your community embraces the idea that people only come who are in need, then it’s easy to make everyone feel welcome without judgement. If volunteers (or staff) think people are there to exploit the system, this reflects in conversations, actions, and policy. Any concerns voiced should be an opportunity for discussing barriers to food security and building respect.

A client arriving in a fancy car may have recently experienced a catastrophic job loss or medical bill that leaves them broke, even though their car screams wealth. Expensive belongings may have been donated, or speak to previous stability, or maybe were all that was grabbed while fleeing domestic violence.

Remembering to be open-minded about the circumstances that bring someone to the food pantry creates a space free of judgement, which will help visitors feel more welcome. Volunteers who can’t adopt this mindset may need to find a different opportunity.

Food is a gift.

Just like any other gift given, the giver has no authority over how it is used. With all the work that goes in to sourcing and distributing food for emergency services, it’s easy to feel possessive over how it’s used. But if we maintain the assumption that everyone who visits a food pantry does so out of need, we need to relinquish the compulsion to control how the food is used.

We’re still building food security if the food is shared with a neighbor, or served at a church luncheon, or stashed in the back of a cupboard untouched for a future emergency. For pantries that are without limits, this attitude can also help check judgements about how much people take. Once it’s in someone’s cart, we can appreciate the hard work we put in to get it there and celebrate that someone will eat well tonight. It doesn’t matter who, or what, or how much.

Services are for shoppers.

I once had a week-long argument with a coworker who was adamant that our food pantry was a volunteer-centered organization. They argued that clients were the vehicle we used to provide an experience for our volunteers, which justified turning away any client who negatively influenced this experience.

The fact that services should focus on fighting hunger seems obvious, but all direct-service anti-hunger organizations wrestle with this conundrum every day. An explicit commitment to serving the community needs to be regularly revisited to ensure that policies focus on the needs of shoppers. This doesn’t mean that volunteers or staff are neglected, but their needs should be considered in a different light.

Everyone knows the importance of being kind at a food pantry, but establishing an atmosphere that truly welcomes people without judgement or stigma requires a much stronger foundation. While established a clear mission and supporting policies can help, this is also the kind of foundation that can be built guerilla-style by a single individual ready to make a change. Conversations uplifting each of these tenets can slowly permeate the organizational culture and build an environment that is more genuine and welcoming, and therefore more effective at fighting hunger.

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

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The Best Volunteers are Taught, Not Found

Several years ago, I was working with a group of volunteers who were sorting donations of fresh and perishable foods. I remember emphasizing that if they were unsure of the quality, they should throw it out because making sure that no one got sick from this food was of the utmost importance. One volunteer nodded and said, “That’s true, because if they get sick then they’ll want us to pay for their medical bills too!”

I was shocked to hear this comment from someone who was volunteering to fight hunger.

It was hard to believe that an individual motivated to do this work could also be so cynical and unkind to the people they were there to help.

One of the major challenges that all food banks and pantries face is working with volunteers. Because nonprofits tend to depend on donated labor to keep staffing costs low, volunteers are essential for accomplishing our social justice goals. However, volunteers come with an incredibly wide range of motivations which can present unique obstacles for the organizations with which they serve.

Volunteering is widely recognized to be good for our physical and mental health, provides important social opportunities, and gives everyone a way to make a meaningful contribution to the world around them. However, this also means that nonprofits are faced wrangling a diverse and eclectic population to meet their goals.

The most effective food pantries have volunteers with a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of hunger, respect for the realities of living in poverty, and trust the mission of their chosen organization to make an impact. (A future post will explore the importance of volunteers with lived experience of hunger.) Here are some of the strategies I use to ensure my volunteers have the skills, confidence, and knowledge they need to be powerful food justice advocates.

Building a Powerful, Anti-Hunger Volunteer Force

1. Present a Unified Message

Every anti-hunger organization needs to be articulate about their mission and goals, which should clearly align with the assignments of volunteers. Are you trying to end hunger? Give your clients all the food they need to thrive? Ensure all the children in your neighborhood have a healthy dinner tonight? This message needs to come from the organization’s leadership, have buy-in from staff, and be regularly explained and reviewed with volunteers.

2. Repetition

Many of your volunteers might not agree with your message. They may believe that people experience hunger because they’re lazy. They may volunteer because they want to spend time with their friends. They may be committed to reducing food waste to be more environmentally friendly. Whatever reason brings them to your food pantry, you will have to explain and model your mission a thousand times every day. Although tedious and emotionally fatiguing, this repetition will help your team understand and eventually internalize your message.

3. Address Power Dynamics

It is essential to be aware that even in the most respectful food pantry, there is an imbalance of power. People seeking assistance are expected to adhere to rules, and volunteers are generally there to enforce them. They have the authority to supply or deny an individual the food they’re looking for, and this authority must not be abused.

As this famous 1973 Stanford experiment taught us, people adopt attitudes that reflect the position they’re in. As the prison guards became more abusive of their authority, it’s easy for volunteers to also inappropriately focus on enforcing rules.

I have two solutions to this problem:

 A. Implement as few rules as possible, so that there are fewer opportunities for violation or enforcement. For example, our clients have no predetermined path that they must travel through our pantry, and they can take as much as they like of many items.

B. Explicitly discuss the power imbalance and the specific language we expect from volunteers to minimize it. For example, if a volunteer sees a client taking more of something than the posted limit, their script is, “we ask that everyone only take (#) of this item. I know it’s not enough, but we’re trying to ensure that everyone gets some. We’re sorry about that.” We always interrupt the use of phrases like a client trying to “take too much” or “steal food,” and instead discuss the potential challenges of accessing the food they need. (We also tell our volunteers that if they find themselves getting too caught up in monitoring our clients, they are to excuse themselves to the breakroom for some candy.)  

4. Model Respect

Like any organization, we occasionally serve individuals who are annoying, frustrating, or aggravating. But no matter how challenging I find them to be, it is essential that volunteers only hear staff speak of and treat these clients with respect and dignity. We also discuss the factors that may influence the behavior of our clients such as stress, embarrassment, mental health, or trauma.  

When I first started working with my food pantry, there were two clients in particular who were known to be difficult. Every visit was an event that took an enormous amount of maintenance to be successful. Eventually, it became clear that previous volunteers had been rude and disrespectful to these individuals so they anticipated conflict every time they came to use our services. By establishing an environment that prioritized respect where they knew they would be treated with kindness, the challenges with these clients largely vanished. Your community will respond to the attitudes of your volunteers, who look to pantry leadership for guidance. When respect is expected at every level, everyone has a better experience.

No matter what your specific mission is, every organization has the capacity to harness their volunteers to be food justice advocates. This is a slow process that depends on the environment you create and the organizational culture you celebrate. Eventually, these attitudes and tools will produce volunteers who find greater fulfillment from their service, higher client satisfaction, and an organization less prone to conflict or abuse.

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

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