Category: News

December 25, 2016: Providence Journal – As supermarkets refine systems to reduce surplus inventory, the Food Bank must buy more, creating a budget deficit.   More

11/21/2016: Providence Journal – After paying cash and using aid, low-income households lack 15% of meals; this “meal gap,” represents 33.2 million missing meals. A significant gap in food assistance means thousands of Rhode Islanders go hungry each day, missing an estimated 33 million meals per year, according to a new report on hunger compiled by the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. The state’s low-income households, says the report, rely on federal food aid, school meals and the food bank for 64 percent of their meals and pay cash for another 21 percent of what they eat.  More

11/12/2016: Providence Journal –  The food bank says it serves 59,000 Rhode Islanders each month. One third of those are children, and one fifth are senior citizens. The Rhode Island Community Food Bank is asking for people to help in its annual holiday food drive. Among the items it needs the most: peanut butter, tuna, whole wheat pasta, rice as well as canned fruits and vegetables, soups and beans.  More

11/2016 – Rhode Island Monthly: If ever a community was food insecure, it was Plimoth Plantation. They settled on the shores of Cape Cod Bay with a goal of religious and economic liberty, but few survival skills. And, but for the intervention of a friendly Wampanoag Indian, Squanto, who taught them how to plant corn and squash — so goes our national myth — they would have died of starvation. Historians debate the real origins of Thanksgiving. But, whether it started as celebration of free enterprise or of the genocide of the Pequot tribe or of the colonists’ first successful harvest, it has become our national monument to food security. So, come November, the stores of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank are never greater. The banks, the scouts, the schools and the houses of worship collect truckloads of boxed stuffing, canned corn and turkeys for the Providence-based nonprofit. In one month, the Food Bank collects 1.2 million pounds of food — double any other month on the calendar. More

9/9/2016 – The annual food drive in support of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank is more than halfway through its seven-week stretch, ending Sept. 16. All 19 Bank Rhode Island branches are accepting food donations, which will be donated to a local food pantry, ensuring the community’s donations impact the local population of those who are most in need. More

9/9/2016 – Providence Journal: The fear of going hungry has eased in Rhode Island. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently reported that the state’s food insecurity rate dropped to 11.8 percent, the lowest level since the recession. We should applaud this achievement because fewer Rhode Islanders are at risk for hunger and more families are able to meet their basic food needs. More

Rhode Island Community Food Bank Summer Newsletter More

8/20/2016 – Rhode Islanders in need can now find a helping hand and a bite to eat at the end of a phone line. Hunger Free America has launched a toll-free “National Hunger Hotline” that aims to put those in search of food in touch with private and government resources that can help provide it. The coast-to-coast initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, operates Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at (866) 348-6479 or (877) 842-6273.  More

July 26, 2016: EcoRI: The Rhode Island Policy Food Council, in conjunction with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and Rhode Island Foundation recently released a report on the state’s food system.  More

6/21/2016 – On Tuesday, June 21, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank launched the 2016 Summer Food Drive to address the need for food assistance all summer long.  More