Guides

Writing for people who run food pantries

Written to be useful whether or not you ever sign up. Nothing here is a feature list with a headline on it — if a guide does not end with something you could do tomorrow, it does not go up.

Wooden crates of potatoes, onions, carrots and red apples on a trestle table in morning light.

Getting started

3 minute read

How to start a food pantry that lasts

The practical order of operations for starting a food pantry: who to call first, what you legally need, what you can skip, and the two things that close most new pantries inside two years.

Paperwork

4 minute read

TEFAP reporting without the dread

What TEFAP actually asks a pantry for, why quarter end hurts, and how to record things during the month so the report is a printout instead of an evening of counting.

3 minute read

What to track, and what to stop

A short list of what a food pantry genuinely needs to record, what is collected out of habit, and how to tell the difference.

The window

4 minute read

Dignity at the window

The details of a pantry visit that neighbors actually remember — the queue, the questions, the bag, the goodbye — and small changes that cost nothing.

Volunteers

3 minute read

Helping older volunteers use a tablet

Practical, tested advice for pantries whose volunteers are in their seventies and eighties: what actually goes wrong with tablets and phones, and the setup that removes most of it.

3 minute read

Finding volunteers with no budget

Where pantry volunteers actually come from, why the first shift decides whether someone returns, and how to stop losing the people you already have.

Food

3 minute read

Cutting food waste at a small pantry

Why food goes off in pantries that care about waste, what date labels actually mean, and the rotation habits that fix most of it without new equipment.

Something missing?

If you run a pantry and there is a question you cannot find a straight answer to anywhere, tell us. We would rather write the answer than watch you spend an evening looking for it.

Suggest a guide