University District Food Bank

A walk-in Food pantry in seattle's University District neighborhood, provides a grocery store shopping experience for 1,300+ weekly customer families. Customers shop through the market to select the produce, dairy, meat, and other pantry staples they need to prepare their own healthy, culturally familiar meals. Hygiene items and baby supplies supplement customer visits. Ready to eat items are available for kitchenless customers when they visit.two weekly satellite pantries continue to support their specific communities, important since these communities have more limited access to healthy Food. The pantry at magnuson park serves 100-150 households per week. At north seattle college, the pantry supports about 200-250 households per week. With more on-campus learning planned for 2023-24, we anticipate that the pantry at north seattle college will continue to grow in participation. In 2024, the Food Bank remains focused on expanding healthy, culturally familiar Food choices at each of these locations.when in-person access to pantries is a challenge, the Food Bank offers home delivery of groceries using a range of collaborations. The Food Bank provides more than 425 households with grocery deliveries each week and maintain a small waiting list for this Service too. Volunteers pack customized grocery bags for each of the home delivery customers based on their expressed needs and preferences. Volunteers deliver the majority of the groceries. An on-going partnership with pedaling relief project brings added delivery capacity to reach one off customers as well as those needing only temporary services. The Food Bank also provides deliveries every saturday through united way and doordash collaborations.packs for kids, a weekly program to bring backpacks of Food to students in nearby public schools, has reached record levels in participation. The Food Bank has new distribution partners this year so they provide this Service through 18 nearby schools and reach more than 750 students each week. This response ensures that students continue to have access to healthy and easy to prepare meals and snacks throughout the weekend and return to school ready to learn on monday morning.the Food Bank continues to operate rooftop roots, our rooftop garden. Through a mix of staff and volunteers, the Food Bank grows produce year-round in 2,000 square feet of raised bed gardens. The produce is distributed directly to the Food Bank's customers across the different programs, as appropriate.we collaborate with the doorway project at uw to offer two 10-week garden internship programs for ten youth living in a nearby transitional housing. We will rebuild our raised beds in early 2024 to increase growing efficiencies and production.the Food Bank works to connect customers to other important community resources. The community engagement team provides a mail Service for more than 120 customers, helps customers enroll in snap and utility discount programs, access free bus tickets, and restore lost identification cards and drivers' licenses. The Food Bank hosts regular health insurance enrollment activities, discount cell phone enrollment, and vaccination clinics for covid, flu, and hepatitis.