Little Free Pantry

# 11-24-2023 10:28 AM
	The Sylvan Lake Library has had a little free pantry for over a decade and over the last few years the use has grown exponentially. I thought I'd share a little bit about how we run ours and I'd love to learn if anyone else has great ideas for how they run. We get food donations from the community, we post regularly on our social media asking for donations and our community is very generous with bringing in food. We also get cash donations from the community. Similarly, when we post on social media we often have patrons give money. We partner with the food bank. Our local foodbank is only open two days a week because of their volunteer shortage. This means that they are happy to partner with us because we can offer better hours of access. They will give us food donations when we ask, but they also give us a check for $500 when ever we ask (2-3 times a year). We've also reached out to local businesses for donations, which we get quite often. We partner with Community Partners (FCSS) and they provide us with (basically) unlimited hygiene products. We are currently signing up with Second Harvest. This organization works with grocery stores and restaurants to give food to organization that provide food those in need. My hope is that we will partner with Community Partners and they will be able to do the pick up of the food and then we can split the food between us. We have 4 bays in our adult area dedicated to the LFP as well as a refrigerator and microwave (with compostable dishware).Over all we spend between $400-$600 a month, this is all donated funds. We have a staff member that does our shopping and is responsible for stocking the LFP, but all staff help restock when they notice it's empty. We store extra dry goods in our storage room and bring the food out little by little. We keep frozen and cool food in a section of our staff refrigerator and bring it out when our public fridge is low. I'm happy to answer any questions

# 11-24-2023 10:28 AM

The Sylvan Lake Library has had a little free pantry for over a decade and over the last few years the use has grown exponentially. I thought I'd share a little bit about how we run ours and I'd love to learn if anyone else has great ideas for how they run.

We get food donations from the community, we post regularly on our social media asking for donations and our community is very generous with bringing in food.
We also get cash donations from the community. Similarly, when we post on social media we often have patrons give money.
We partner with the food bank. Our local foodbank is only open two days a week because of their volunteer shortage. This means that they are happy to partner with us because we can offer better hours of access. They will give us food donations when we ask, but they also give us a check for $500 when ever we ask (2-3 times a year).
We've also reached out to local businesses for donations, which we get quite often.
We partner with Community Partners (FCSS) and they provide us with (basically) unlimited hygiene products.
We are currently signing up with Second Harvest. This organization works with grocery stores and restaurants to give food to organization that provide food those in need. My hope is that we will partner with Community Partners and they will be able to do the pick up of the food and then we can split the food between us.

We have 4 bays in our adult area dedicated to the LFP as well as a refrigerator and microwave (with compostable dishware).Over all we spend between $400-$600 a month, this is all donated funds. We have a staff member that does our shopping and is responsible for stocking the LFP, but all staff help restock when they notice it's empty. We store extra dry goods in our storage room and bring the food out little by little. We keep frozen and cool food in a section of our staff refrigerator and bring it out when our public fridge is low.

I'm happy to answer any questions smile

# 11-24-2023 12:35 PM
hmccullough@gppl.ca	Love seeing libraries combat food security! We have a Little Free Pantry as well and have recently joined FAST (Food Access and Security Taskforce). It's a group of other organizations in the community that fight food insecurity and includes members from Salvation Army, AHS, and social policy advisors from our municipality, to name a few. We've only been to one meeting, but so far it seems like a good connection to cross promote resources. With the LFP in your community, have you had other orgs of a similar nature that have approached wanting to collaborate?

# 11-24-2023 12:35 PM

hmccullough@gppl.ca

Love seeing libraries combat food security! We have a Little Free Pantry as well and have recently joined FAST (Food Access and Security Taskforce). It's a group of other organizations in the community that fight food insecurity and includes members from Salvation Army, AHS, and social policy advisors from our municipality, to name a few. We've only been to one meeting, but so far it seems like a good connection to cross promote resources. With the LFP in your community, have you had other orgs of a similar nature that have approached wanting to collaborate?