Q. What is the Food Bank of Delaware?
A. Founded in 1981, the Food Bank of Delaware provides food for the hungry in the entire state of Delaware and small parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania. We solicit, collect, purchase and store food from farmers, manufacturers, brokers, wholesalers, retailers and others in the food industry and redistribute it to nonprofit agencies that provide free food to the hungry.
Q. Where is the Food Bank of Delaware located?
A. The Food Bank of Delaware is headquartered in Newark, Delaware (14 Garfield Way, Delaware Industrial Park with a second location in Milford (1040 Mattlind Way) to serve Kent and Sussex Counties.
Q. How does the Food Bank of Delaware help hungry Delawareans?
A. We provide food and resources through a network of 440 hunger-relief program partners. Our member agencies include food pantries, shelter or residential programs, social service agencies, emergency soup kitchens and neighborhood and church distribution programs who reach low- income people in need.
Q. How does the Food Bank of Delaware get food?
A. Food manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, brokers, and food distributors donate millions of pounds of food and other grocery products to the Food Bank of Delaware each year. Our fleetof trucks travel up and down the Eastern Seaboard to pickup food from donors. Commercial trucks also haul in donations from food industry donors in the region and across the country that are tapped through Feeding America. Food industry donors make a variety of packaged, canned, perishable, and non-perishable foods, including poultry, pasta, cereal, produce, snacks and beverages, available to feed Delaware’s hungry. The Food Bank also receives food through generous individual community donors and groups, businesses and organizations that hold food drives throughout the year.
In order to ensure a consistent supply of certain food staples, the Food Bank of Delaware purchases food in large volumes. About 11 percent of our warehouse is purchased food items.
Q. How is food distributed to hungry Delawareans?
A. When truckloads of donated food arrives at the Food Bank of Delaware, the food is unloaded, weighed, sorted, boxed, inventoried and added to a menu of items for our hunger-relief partners to order from. Partners come to the Food Bank of Delaware to obtain food from our menu or Shopper’s Choice area or request delivery of needed food supplies.
Q. How much food is distributed?
A. We distribute between seven and 12 million pounds of food each year.
Q. Who does the Food Bank of Delaware serve?
A. The Food Bank of Delaware provides food to food pantries, emergency shelters, low-income day care centers, after-school programs, senior centers, churches and other feeding programs. Through our network we serve 241,600 Delawareans each year.
Q. Does the Food Bank of Delaware sell food?
A. The Food Bank of Delaware does not re-sell any donated food. All food banks ask their agencies to contribute to some of the costs of operation by assessing a small “shared maintenance fee” on the dry goods that we warehouse and distribute to our agencies. By law, no individual client may be charged any amount whatsoever for food that has been donated for hunger relief. The Food Bank of Delaware monitors its agencies to insure that this never happens. We do purchase some of our warehouse inventory in bulk to meet demand. We are able to secure these items at bulk costs and pass the discount along to our member agencies.
Q. Where does the Food Bank of Delaware get its funding from?
A. We receive funding from a variety of generous funders: foundations, state and federal government, corporations, small businesses and individuals
Q. How do I hold a food drive?
A. Holding a food drive is a fun way to get involved in helping hungry Delawareans. Click here to view our Food Drive kit. All of the information to get started is right there. Ready to start collecting? Please call Jim Weir at (302) 444-8073 or email him a jweir@fbd.org. Virtual food drives are also available online as a fun and easy was to raise food. Click here to get started.
Q. How can I become a hunger-relief partner?
A. Click here to download a printable partner application. Fill it out and mail to Food Bank of Delaware, 14 Garfield Way, Newark, DE 19713 attn: Naty Russo. Kent and Sussex agency prospects – mail it to Food Bank of Delaware, 1040 Mattlind Way, Milford, DE 19963 attn: Crystal Timmons.