Mobile Pantry Program Culturally Responsive Food Intiative Not every community we serve has a pantry, which makes it hard to provide equitable access to our neighbors. In 2022, we launched the Mobile Pantry Program to provide food pantry distributions to residents in four communities that lack brick-and-mortar food pantries and nearby grocery stores. We deliver nutritious food to centralized locations where participants choose the items that meet their household’s needs. We will expand to additional sites in 2023. Children’s Programs The Food Bank’s BackPack Program, School Pantry Program and Summer BackPack Program provided over 2.4 million meals to 10,000 children and teens throughout the school year. In addition to weekly food bags, these programs provided personal hygiene items, school supplies, and holiday baskets to help children across our 23 county service area. Senior Food Delivery Program Low income seniors without their own transportation face a unique barrier to accessing fresh food. In partnership with low income senior housing sites, the Food Bank’s Senior Food Delivery Program delivers nutritious food to low income seniors at their housing facilities every other week, ideally during weeks when transportation to a grocery store is unavailable. 1,300 seniors at more than 20 senior housing sites participate in the program. Food pantry guests from different cultural backgrounds may have different food preferences, experience language barriers, or feel uncomfortable going to pantries. Thanks to a grant from CDPHP, the Food Bank conducted research to determine which foods are most desirable throughout our network, added them to our inventory, and provided a “Food & Culture” series of trainings to our partner network to increase awareness of culturally sensitive diets. Retail Store Donation Program The Retail Store Donation Program enables the Regional Food Bank to increase our emergency food distribution by collecting food from participating grocers that would otherwise be thrown away like meat, dairy, and produce. In 2022, 12.4 million pounds of food were rescued from 228 stores across 17 retailers, providing 10.3 million meals to our neighbors in need. Just in Time Delivery Program Many of our partner pantries have to limit the amount of fresh food they provide due to lack of space to store or transport these products. The Food Bank’s Just in Time Delivery Program brings produce, dairy, and other perishable food to pantries ‘just in time’ for distribution, without them having to transport or store it. The Schenectady Foundation and the Seymour Fox Memorial Foundation offered generous support to pilot this program. 6
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