Browse All Topics

Programs sponsored in many communities by local food banks that distribute directly to clients who are unable to obtain adequate amounts of healthful food, particularly to people who live in low-income communities without reasonable access to a traditional food pantry as well as to college campuses where hunger among students is a growing problem. With the ability to travel, mobile food pantries can address food insecurity where it exists while finding homes for fresh, perishable food items including produce, grains, meat and dairy products before their shelf life expires and they go to waste. Mobile pantry agencies (generally churches or local nonprofits) may borrow an available parking lot, (e.g., a school's lot after hours), and after scheduling a mobile pantry distribution with their sponsoring food bank, they can leaflet the neighborhood or take other steps to announce to potential clients when and where the distribution will take place. When the truck carrying the food arrives, the host group's volunteers set up tables and load them with food. Clients may fill out short questionnaires or go through brief interviews, then walk around the truck like they would at a farmer's market and select the food they want to take home. When all of the clients have left, the volunteers load any leftovers back in the truck, leaving the parking lot as clean as it was when they arrived.