Harvest Hope Food Bank

Harvest Hope began in 1981 as the result of a shared vision of business leaders and the faith community, who set out to provide for the hungry in columbia. Since then, Harvest Hope has increased its mission to feed the hungry across 20 counties in south carolina.we rescue Food from stores throughout the state and distribute it to Food pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens. We operate programs that provide Food for our most vulnerable citizens children, seniors, and rural residents who don't have access to grocery stores. We also operate two emergency Food pantries in richland and greenville counties where anyone in need can get a week's supply of groceries for free. For the year ending june 30, 2021, Harvest Hope partnered with 358 agencies and 149 other program partners for a total of 507 community nonprofit, school, faith partner collaborations. These collaboration brought vital Food assistance to urban, suburban and isolated areas of south carolina.total Harvest Hope agencies distributing during the year ended june 30, 2021: 358other program partners total: 149total partner collaboration in 20 counties: 507total meals distributed by agencies: 22,923,903total pounds distributed by agencies: 27,508,684many challenges arose in march 2020 as the covid-19 pandemic hit the nation and the economy was largely shut down. Many neighbors lost their jobs and were very suddenly unable to provide for their families. We are still seeing the effects of this. We are experiencing supply chain issues with limitations to purchased Food and receiving less retail donations due to availiability of product. Breakdown by Harvest Hope branch:midlands (serving counties of calhoun, chester, fairfield, kershaw, lexington, newberry, orangeburg, richland and saluda):10,481,172 total meals distributed234,668 total families served534,793 total individuals served12,577,407 total pounds distributedpee dee (serving the counties of chesterfield, clarendon, darlington, dillon, florence, lee, marion, marlboro and sumter):6,589,493 total meals distributed312,350 total families served883,472 total individuals served7,907,391 total pounds distributed upstate (serving the counties of greenville and laurens):5,853238 total meals distributed242,111 total families served499,138 total individuals served7,023,886 total pounds distributed

Harvest Hope has two (2) on-site emergency Food pantries, one in the midlands and one in the upstate, and an emergency box program in the pee dee to provide immediate hunger relief assistance to families and individuals of all ages and backgrounds. C receive assistance, clients visit from counties exceeding the twenty counties in our service area, to receive shelf stable goods, fresh produce, meat, dairy, frozen goods, baked goods, and personal hygiene or baby items when available. Harvest Hope records information such as age, gender, zip code, and reason for seeking help. Most clients are experiencing hunger due to unemployment, underemployment, needing to make tradeoffs between medicines, healthcare, housing, and Food. We provide resources to help with those issues and assist them in accessing services, including the supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap). As of march 2020, the emergency Food pantries were moved to operating outdoors as a drive-thru line to limit person-to-person exposure during the covid-19 pandemic. We now accept new applicants indoors to complete the application process but Food pickup remains outdoors via drive-thru to limit exposure of our volunteers and staff.in fy21, Harvest Hope's self-operated emergency Food programs directly served 5,903,799 meals or 7,084,559 pounds of food.emergency Food pantry program by location:midlands:food equal to 3,221,375 meals distributed25,241 families served88,918 individuals served 3,865,650 pounds of Food distributedupstate:food equal to 2,6825,424 meals distributed50,732 families served173,340 individuals served3,218,909 pounds of Food distributedmobile Food pantry programharvest Hope's mobile Food pantry program is operated by a fleet of refrigerated trucks that deliver pre-packed non-perishable boxes along with fresh produce, frozen meats, bread and dairy to communities with limited access to a pantry and/or grocery store. In addition, during the growing season, we provide fresh produce drops in the community into targeted pockets of poverty.total Harvest Hope mobile Food pantries: 824total number of families served: 174,050average number of mobile Food pantries conducted per month: 69mobile Food pantry breakdown by location:midlands: 293 Food pantries (average 24 Food pantries per month) reached 34,001 familiespee dee: 463 Food pantries (average 39 Food pantries per month) reached 122,986 familiesupstate: 68 Food pantries (average 6 Food pantries every month) reached 17,063 families

Harvest Hope provides supplementary nutritious meals to children facing hunger or Food insecurity through the backpack program first established by feeding america. Harvest Hope also provides supplementary Food assistance to seniors through the u.s. department of agriculture commodity supplemental Food program. For the backpack child feeding program Harvest Hope provided bulk purchased Food items monthly to packing partners to sort, pack, and transport, weekly backpacks to local participant schools. School personnel, including social workers, counselors, and/or teachers, distribute the weekly backpacks on friday to the children participating in the program.total meals distributed: 205,973total children served: 14,773total pounds distributed: 247,168total school sites: 38total packing partners: 28breakdown by location:midlands: 162,719 meals distributed (363 children served per week/11,607 per school year)pee dee: 2,059 meals distributed (6 children served per week/200 per school year)upstate: 41,195 meals distributed (93 children served per week/2,966 per school year)harvest Hope senior programs (commodity supplemental Food program (cfsp) total meals served: 1,104,087total seniors served: 33,688total pounds of Food distributed: 1,324,907total community collaborations: 51commodity supplemental Food program (csfp) in collaboration with the sc department of agriculture and usda, Harvest Hope along with select community partners, provides a monthly supplemental Food box (40 pounds) to qualifying seniors ages 60 years and older.total number of meals distributed: 1,104,087total seniors served through csfp program: 33,688total pounds of Food distributed: 1,324,904breakdown by location: midlands: 768,444 meals distributed/19,615 seniors served (1,635 per month)pee dee: 317,977 meals distributed/7,939 seniors served (662 per month)upstate: 238,483 meals distributed/6,134 seniors served (511 per month)