A program of New Hampshire Catholic Charities, the New Hampshire Food Bank serves as the only Food Bank in the state. Our current approach to ending hunger includes developing programs to help educate our registered agencies, rolling out a Mobile Food Pantry, expanding our Cooking Matters^R program, and developing our Recipe for Success program.  Every year, the Food Bank distributes over 7.8 million pounds of donated, surplus food to more than 400 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, day care centers and senior citizen homes. These registered agencies in turn provide the food to over 130,000 different men, women and children throughout New Hampshire each year.

  

What is a Food Bank?

A food bank is the center of food collection and distribution in a community. This food usually comes from grocery stores or manufacturers that have thousands of pounds of food to give away -- food that would have otherwise been thrown away. In essence, food banks collect, sort and re-distribute food to the community. Traditionally, a food bank does not distribute food directly to those in need. Instead, food banks serve an extensive network of organizations in their respective communities. These organizations serve one part of the community and know the needs of the people there. Therefore, working together, the food bank and the community organization can serve a greater number of people in the most efficient way. At the New Hampshire Food Bank, a significant portion of our food donations come through Feeding America, the nation's food bank network formerly known as America's Second Harvest. Feeding America solicits product donations from national companies such as Con-Agra, Kellogg's, Nabisco and others, which are then allocated to over 200 food banks across the country. Each food bank is responsible for paying transportation costs to get the product to their warehouse location.