COVID-19 Emergency Food Fund 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 placed our hot meal and clothing programs on hold. But we’ve increased our hours of distribution while meeting an increased demand for emergency food and supplies.

We’ve also established The River’s COVID-19 Emergency Food Fund to 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 our newest program, called FAM (Family At-Home Meals).

Thanks to your support, from March 16, 2020–January 31, 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)

grocery deliveries to homebound seniors through Food Bridge

deliveries of groceries to the homebound through River Delivers

WORTHY OF NOTE:

2,351 new families in Dane County have registered to pick up curbside groceries and meals
New registrations per month doubled compared to before COVID-19.
The River distributed 148% more food compared to the same time period in 2019.
Each household has taken home an average of 117 pounds of emergency food and supplies per visit.
MUNCH has distributed an average of 188 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.