Food Banks And Free Pantries Palm Beach County
Emergency food can be provided to Palm Beach County Florida residents from churches, food banks, soup kitchens and free emergency food pantries near you. The goal is to help them temporarily meet their needs for assistance. Many locations can also offer free personal hygiene supplies, clothing, referrals, and information on other Florida and Palm Beach assistance programs. There may be benefits including WIC, food stamp vouchers, and summer meals for children. Find information below including a toll free phone number at the bottom of the page.
Many of the locations have created programs that acquire groceries and food products through donations from members of the community. The goods may be provided to the pantry from canned food drives, charities or government surplus programs. The pantries then distribute the food, for free or low cost, to families and individuals in Palm Beach Florida who are faced with a crisis or emergency situation.
Other services are available as well. Some of the food pantries also can provide hot meals, access to soup kitchen, and deliver food to senior citizens and disabled individuals in the county as part of a free Meals on Wheels service. Another focus is on feeding children during the summer and breaks in the school year.
CROS Riviera Beach Community Food Pantry – Housing Partnership GroupAddress – 2001 W. Blue Heron BoulevardRiviera Beach, Florida 33404
Some Fear What Future Holds For Palm Beach County’s Needy
Sanchez is grateful for the few volunteers who help her distribute meals. But she says Palm Beach families need more than bags of food.
Families who came to FCC only for groceries are desperate to receive rent assistance and to register for federal relief like food stamps and Medicaid. Most county food banks say now more than ever, families need their support more to sustain their households.
Rental vouchers have kept residents from losing their homes, for now.
Because the price of everything is so high with inflation and the rents keep doubling, many people, even with the voucher cannot afford to rent here, said Negron.
The need for rental assistance skyrocketed in 2020 when residents faced evictions. But far from coming down, Negron says, it continued to rise with a spark in January.
For her, seeing more families seeking preemptive services is a worry. Shes afraid of what the rest of the year will bring for her already struggling clients, and how many people she will have to help them.
Now is going to be worse, said Negron. There is so much need in Palm Beach County, of people who have social, economic and cultural barriers and our volunteers are how we help that population break that cycle for the better.
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Palm Beach County Food Bank Raises Supply Concerns Amid Inflation
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. Families in Palm Beach County are struggling to put food on the table because of inflation. Local nonprofits are ramping up their efforts to help, but it’s also now becoming increasingly difficult for them to supply the food.
Farm Share CEO Stephen Shelley said their food supply is lower than it was pre-pandemic, yet the need is significantly higher.
“It’s very difficult for food banks to provide the food that is in such high demand,” Shelley said. “And additional supply chain issues have really effected private donations from other donors, plus the cost, the inflationary cost to get that food to us or for us to get that food from them has also affected our bottom line.”
Right now, Shelley said, they are supplying up to 8 million pounds of food a month to South Florida families.
Although much of their produce is donated, Farm Share is responsible for transporting their food to South Florida and, with the rising cost of gas, Shelley said, it’s becoming significantly more expensive.
He said they have two options right now find more funding or cut services.
“A lot of these are hardworking families who are being effected by the high gas prices, rent prices, food prices and other household staples, they’re finding that their paychecks just don’t go far enough each and every month,” Shelley said.
Farm Share’s next food distribution will take place Friday at the Palm Beach Outlets. The event starts at 8 a.m. until supplies last.
A Simple System That Really Works

EVERY 2 MONTHSon the second Saturday of every even monthour Neighborhood Coordinators pick up bags of healthy nonperishable food that neighbors have left outside their front doors. They leave empty Green Bags for next time, and take all the collected food to be distributed to our local Food Pantries. Its that easy!
A Simple System That Really Works
EVERY 2 MONTHSon the second Saturday of every even monthour Neighborhood Coordinators pick up bags of healthy nonperishable food that neighbors have left outside their front doors. They leave empty green bags for next time, and take all the food to local Food Banks. Its that easy!
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Bank Of America Has Partnered With Feeding America To Help Fight Hunger For Every $1 You Give Bank Of America Will Give $2* More So If You Give $25 Theyll Make It $75 If You Give $50 Theyll Make It $150 Any Amount You Can Give Will Truly Help Families In Need Lets Use All Our Connections To Fight Hunger
Just visit bankofamerica.com/give, or see how Bank of America is helping to fight hunger nationwide at bankofamerica.com/hungerrelief
Give a Meal is a promotional campaign of Feeding America® with the goal to help provide meals to families in need. All donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
Donations designated to Feeding America will support Feeding Americas mission to feed individuals and families facing hunger and engage our country in the fight to end hunger. Gifts designated to Your Local Food Bank will benefit the food bank served by the billing zip code entered by the donor. If more than one food bank serves the territory of the donors billing zip code, the donation will benefit each food bank equally.
*All donations, including the Bank of America Charitable Foundations matching donations, will go to the Feeding America network . For individual donations made to Feeding America through the Give a Meal program before December 31, 2015, the Foundation will match each donation two-to-one, with a maximum total Foundation donation of up to $50,000 to any individual local food bank, and an aggregate maximum Foundation donation of up to $1,500,000 for all Feeding America programs. $1=11 meals secured by Feeding America on behalf of member food banks.
Coronavirus Florida: Palm Beach County Food Bank Gets $1m Donation
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It was a small item in the Palm Beach Daily News, just a very short story about The Breakers Resort on Palm Beach giving 23,000 pounds of food to the Palm Beach County Food Bank in Lantana.
But the March 24 article about one hotels efforts to help during the coronavirus pandemic caught Lois Popes eye.
Ive been living here since 1971, said the Manalpan philanthropist. I knew there were poor sections But I didnt realize there were food banks.
Brought back in time to the Depression years of her childhood, Pope remembered what it was like to be a child and worry about food.
She then made a quick decision to act.
Pope gave $1 million to the Palm Beach County Food Bank, the largest gift in the food banks history.
The money will go to support and expand the food bank childrens program, Food4OurKids program, now renamed Lois Food4Kids.
Its very unusual, Karen C. Erren, Food Bank executive director, said of the gift. Mrs. Pope has really come to the forefront to ensure children in this community get access to the food they need.
Every week, a backpack with seven meals for children, plus one meal for the family, is distributed through Boys and Girls Clubs throughout the county.
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‘we Can’t Sustain That’: Food Staff Costs Rising For Food Banks
Without volunteers, most distribution centers have closed sporadically or reduced their hours to keep offering services. Those that remain open are having to spend more money to continue operating.
Our expenses are going up, our families are seeing their grocery bills go up, and we’re seeing the food costs go up, said Paco Velez, CEO of Feeding South Florida, the region’s largest food bank. We’re bringing in as much as we can for our families
About one in eight residents in Palm Beach County copes with food insecurity, or a lack of consistent access to food, according to Feeding South Florida.
They either don’t have nutritious food in their neighborhoods or don’t have enough money to afford it. That number is only expected to increase as rent prices soar, inflation continues to rise and COVID-19 keeps people out of their jobs, food bank leaders say.
Velez said the need for food banks is at an all-time high. Hes seen an increase in the frequency of families coming to pick up food multiple times a week.
A lot more people are coming now, said Katie Knight, the assistant director of the CROS Ministries food pantries. People that we hadn’t seen in a couple of years are now coming back every week because their rent is soaring and they can’t pay for food anymore.
Within the last year, our costs of food, not just the price, but how much we’re purchasing is probably close to 50 percent more than what we did a year ago, said Harper. We can’t sustain that.
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A Donor Advised Fund is a charitable giving vehicle sponsored by a public charity . Examples of where you can establish a Donor Advised Fund include community foundations, Schwab Charitable, Fidelity Charitable services and Vanguard Charitable.
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Palm Beach County Food Project
1 in 7 Americans struggle with hunger.
The Palm Beach County Food Project is an innovative, new way to fight hunger in our community.
You want to help We make it easy.
Watch This
1 in 7 Americans struggle with hunger.
The Palm Beach County Food Project is an innovative, new way to fight hunger in our community.
You want to help We make it easy.
Watch
Food Service Free Food Distribution Programs
Mission:The Food Bank distributed over 10 Mil pounds of food to over 145 agencies in Palm Beach County.
Palm Beach County Food Bank Inc. is a 501 organization, with an IRS ruling year of 2012, and donations are tax-deductible.
Lake Worth FL 33461-3882
Important note on the timeliness of ratings
The IRS is significantly delayed in processing nonprofits’ annual tax filings . As a result, the Finance & Accountability score for Palm Beach County Food Bank Inc. is outdated and the overall rating may not be representative of its current operations. Please check with the charity directly for any questions you may have.
Encompass Rating System by Charity Navigator
Overall Score
This charity’s score is a passing score.This overall score is calculated entirely from a single beacon score: 100% Finance & Accountability
Finance & Accountability
This score provides an assessment of a nonprofit’s financial health and its commitment to governance practices and policies.
Finance & Accountability Score
out of 100
The score earned by Palm Beach County Food Bank Inc. is a passing score
This V6 of the Finance & Accountability Score provides a baseline measure of an organization’s health including the indicators listed in the report below.
This score represents Form 990 data from 2020, the latest year electronically filed and published by the IRS.
Higher effect on score
More data
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Community Need For New Partner Sites
There must be an established need in your community for a new food program. We reserve the right to review the concentration of agencies in your community. If a food program already exists in your neighborhood, then it may be more beneficial to collaborate with them. Upon request, we will provide a list of other agencies in your area that you may contact to discuss community-specific needs. These agencies may also offer opportunities for you to learn about food program activities in your community via network meetings.
Pre-questionnaire for New Partner Information Sessions
If you meet the basic requirements, a Programs Team Coordinator will reach out to invite you to fill out a New Partner full application followed by an Information Session. If you do not meet the basic requirements, we will let you know why and what changes you can make to your program.
Please Note:
- Meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee approval of partnership.
- The EIN number you provide MUST be verifiable on the IRS website as tax exempt.
Donate To Project Thanksgiving

We hope that you will make a gift to Project Thanksgiving today to help us ensure that everyone in Palm Beach County can enjoy a holiday meal. It only takes $20 to help feed a family of four, and its easy to contribute!
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Donate online. Please select the county you wish to make your gift to:
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Text to give. Text THANKSUW to 41444.
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Donate by check. Please make it payable to United Way of PBC/Project Thanksgiving and send to:
CBS 12s Project Thanksgiving C/O United Way of PBC 477 S. Rosemary Ave., Suite 230West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
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Why Donate Crypto To Palm Beach County Food Bank Inc
In Palm Beach County, there are more than 181,000 people projected to experience food insecurity. The Palm Beach County Food Bank distributes more than 17 million pounds of food to over 1.4 million Palm Beach County residents yearly. We partner with more than 200 county agencies, shelters, schools, food pantries, and soup kitchens through our Partner Marketplace, Childhood Hunger Initiatives, and Benefits Outreach programs. Together, we nourish and turn hunger into hope by helping those struggling to find their next meal.
Join The Support Team
It takes: Whatever time you choose
Your role: Weve got lots big and small jobs to do! Help with anything from unloading bags of food to making phone calls to joining our Steering Committee.
Impact: In the Food Project, every job is essential. Were an all-volunteer organization. We depend on people like you to keep us going.
Fight Hunger in Your Own Backyard
Recommended Reading: St Paul’s Food Bank
Palm Beach County Food Bank
701 Boutwell Road, Suite A-2, Lake Worth, Florida33461
The Palm Beach County Food Bank provides access to nutritious food for more than 100,000 hungry Palm Beach County residents every month.
The Food Bank procures more than 5 million pounds of food annually from grocery stores, restaurants, food distributors, wholesalers and other sources and provides it to more than 200 local community partners, including food pantries, soup kitchens and residential housing programs.
Palm Beach County Food Bank programs reach families, school children and seniors, and connect those in need to available benefits and resources.
‘the Staff Can Only Do So Much And They’ve Been Stretched Very Thin’
Jason Lorey cooks 450 meals every week for the CROS Caring Kitchen. He distributes them from the van he parks outside the Delray Beach Public Library on Atlantic Avenue, near the tennis center and the south county courthouse.
Before the pandemic, Lorey had eight volunteers help him create the menu, buy the groceries and cook. For the last two years, hes been doing it all on his own.
It has to get done, so we have to do it, Lorey says. On a single day he hands out over 50 warm plates of food. Then he sits to eat and talk with the men dealing with homelessness. He already knows them by name.
For them, Lorey says, it’s all worth it, every single week.
In 2020, the Caring Kitchen gave out hot meals five days a week inside the library. The pandemic forced them to move outside and serve directly from their van. Because of their volunteer shortage, they can only serve two days a week.
Volunteers are just as important as staff because the staff can only do so much, said Ruth Mageria, CROS Ministries executive director. And theyve been stretched very thin.
For places like The Soup Kitchen in suburban Boynton Beach, the older population is vital to their success. Most of the volunteers are older, but with the concerns that omicron has presented, some arent able to commit the same amount of time as they did two years ago.
They have to choose between food or medication, said Mageria.
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