Food Pantry Best Practice Guide (2019)
We provided a grant to the Coalition Against Hunger to create this best practice guide for food pantries. Though the guide uses many examples from Montgomery County organizations, food pantries and others working in emergency food can benefit from the guide.
Starting in 2014 when we began investing in the food pantry network via the MontCo Anti-Hunger Network and food pantry capacity grants, we heard from food pantries across the county and region that they wanted a best practice guide to help them improve their operations and better serve their clients.
The guide offers something for pantries of all sizes. Among the important topics it covers are:
- How to create a more welcoming environment through converting to a choice pantry and providing trauma-informed training to all staff and volunteers
- Suggestions for finding more resources for your pantry from money and additional food to other services for participants
- How to more effectively manage pantry operations including caring for equipment and using technology to increase efficiency.
Along with our Food Pantry Financial Management Toolkit and Philabundance's Food Pantry Volunteer Management Toolkit and Food Pantry Advocacy Toolkit, food pantries in Montgomery County and the region now have access to a full suite of tools to help them better serve those in need.
The guide is available to download under Files, below.
