COVID-19 Impact

How is The River Food Pantry responding to COVID-19?

We’ve adapted our services to meet the growing nutritional needs of food-insecure households in Dane County for the duration of the pandemic. We’ve increased our hours of distribution and now provide:

Boxes of groceries, including perishable and non-perishable foods, for thousands of local households to pick up curbside at The River once a week.
Pre-bagged lunches for children delivered six days a week through MUNCH, The River’s mobile lunch program, to nine low-income Northside neighborhoods.
To-go meals for families to take home through FAM (Family At-Home Meals).
Deliveries of groceries and meals to homebound households across Dane County through River Delivers.

Thanks to your support, from March 16, 2020–June 30, 2021 The River served:

pounds of food and supplies

households

household visits

lunches to children and their caretakers through our mobile lunch program, MUNCH

to-go meals through FAM (Family At-Home Meals)

deliveries of groceries to the homebound through River Delivers

WORTHY OF NOTE:

2,897 new families in Dane County have registered to pick up curbside groceries and meals
New registrations per month doubled compared to before COVID-19.
Each household has taken home an average of 117 pounds of emergency food and supplies per visit.
MUNCH has distributed an average of 200 mobile lunches per day to children in 9 low-income neighborhoods: Oak Park Terrace, Ridgecrest, Vera Court, Parkcrest Apartments, Brentwood Parkway, Packers Townhouse, Northport Apartments, Kipling Drive, as well as Kennedy Heights.