Update and moving forward

[Hannah Lupien]

Hello Client Choice Network,

 

Please take a moment to look at the attached excel document – it still needs updating, so let me know if the information for your organization is incorrect or missing (or another pantry you know of).

 

At our luncheon workshop at the City Harvest conference on June 23 we discussed both successes and challenges of client choice pantries. One theme that arose in the discussion of challenges was food, including food shortages, diverse food and nutrition needs of clients, limited availability of meat, and lack of refrigerators and other equipment. We at West Side Campaign Against Hunger would like to offer some possible solutions as a way of starting a larger conversation. Please feel free to “Reply All” to this e-mail with suggestions, questions, and additional ideas. Here are our thoughts:

 

·         United Way may have funding for your pantry to purchase refrigerators or freezers. If you need contact information for them let me know.

·         City Harvest is a great resource, and they’ve promised to double the amount of food they rescue in the next year. When you’re short on food, give them a call – they may be able to serve your pantry with another route, or bring more food on your existing routes.

·         In January and July there are often delays in getting EFAP funding, which can make food supply scarce in those month. Let’s use our strength in numbers to tell EFAP we demand their funding all year!

·         On the advocacy front, we also need to lobby for more TEFAP funding. In the current political climate TEFAP stands to be cut significantly, which will hurt all of us. The Food Bank for NYC has some advocacy materials, and if you’re interested I can help connect your pantry to larger advocacy efforts.

·         If you order from the Food Bank for NYC already, you may be able to get more bang for your buck by ordering large quantities of specific foods when they’re available on the TEFAP or FOODBANK DONTED lists. For example, we recently bought 100 cases of pasta for only $2 a case, even though we won’t use up that much pasta for quite awhile.

 

I hope some of these ideas resonate with your situation, and I look forward to hearing ideas from other pantries.

 

Thank you,

Hannah

 

Hannah Lupien, Food Policy Strategist

West Side Campaign Against Hunger

263 West 86th Street I New York, NY 10024

Tel:  212-362-3662 (x 126) I Fax: 212-769-4341

Web: www.wscah.org I Like us on Facebook