What Is Food Banking?
Is it more important to give someone a fish, or teach them to fish? The answer is both.
A food bank provides relief in the face of immediate need as well as support and services that help reduce the need in the future. While they serve the critical purpose of feeding hungry people in the short term, food banks also become essential community assets that help break the cycle of poverty over time.
Food banking is a system that moves food from donors to the people who need it and engages all sectors of society in the effort. The food banking system feeds millions of people each year, becomes a vehicle for building public awareness about hunger and its solutions, and serves as a powerful voice that drives policy decisions that impact the food security of individuals and communities.
How Food Banking Works
A food bank is a nonprofit distribution enterprise that serves the community. It acquires donated food—much of which would otherwise be wasted—and makes it available to people who are hungry through a network of community agencies. These agencies include school feeding programs, food pantries, soup kitchens, hospices, substance abuse clinics, after-school programs and other nonprofit organizations.
Why It Works
Food banking is an effective approach to alleviating the global food crisis because it is:
- Universally supported – People everywhere recognize and respect the conviction that no one should go hungry. When it comes to hunger, there is no “they” to oppose the “we” who work to end it.
- Practical and efficient - Food banking appeals to the heart and the head; it feeds people while reducing waste.
- Scalable – Food banks can start at the community level and expand and network to feed a state, a nation and the world.
- Adaptable – Food banks can operate in different ways to suit different cultures and economies.
- Non-competitive – Food banking does not interfere with commercial channels of food distribution. It is an effective, cost-reducing outlet for businesses, governments and farmers.
GFN At Work
The Global FoodBanking Network supports food banks and food bank networks where they exist and works collaboratively to create them in communities where they are needed.
