A soup kitchen, meal center, or food kitchen is a place where food is offered to the hungry usually for free or sometimes at a below-market price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, soup kitchens are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church or community groups. Soup kitchens sometimes obtain food from a food bank for free or at a low price, because they are considered a charity, which makes it easier for them to feed the many people who require their services.
Government cheese is processed cheese provided to welfare beneficiaries, Food Stamp recipients and the elderly receiving Social Security in the United States, and is still provided to food charities. The processed cheese was used in military kitchens since World War II and in schools since as early as the 1950s.
The North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) is a social benefit organization located in Dallas Texas. The organization distributes donated, purchased and prepared foods through a network of nearly 1,000 feeding programs and 262 Partner Agencies in 13 North Texas counties. The NTFB supports the nutritional needs of children, seniors, and families through education, advocacy and strategic partnerships.
Houston Food Bank is a solution to both hunger and food waste. In the year following Hurricane Harvey the Food Bank distributed 122 million nutritious meals through its network of 1,500 community partners, including food pantries, soup kitchens, social service providers, and schools in southeast Texas. The Food Bank distributes fresh produce, meat and nonperishables from their warehouse at 535 Portwall, where they also prepare nutritious hot meals for kids in the Keegan Kitchen. Houston Food Bank works with grocery stores and growers to rescue food before it reaches landfills with a focus on fresh healthy food. Additional community services include nutrition education and SNAP application assistance. They feed hungry people in 18 counties within southeast Texas alongside their partner food banks in Montgomery County, Galveston and Brazos Valley. The Houston Food Bank, founded in 1982, is a certified member of Feeding America, the nation’s food bank network, with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.
The Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation was one of the so-called alphabet agencies set up in the United States during the 1930s as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Created in 1933 as the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation, its name was changed by charter amendment on November 18, 1935. In 1937 its administration was placed within the United States Department of Agriculture. In 1940 it was combined with other USDA initiatives to form the Surplus Marketing Administration. It was abolished February 23, 1942, with the creation of the Agricultural Marketing Administration.
A Campus Kitchen is an on-campus student service program that is a member of the nonprofit organization, The Campus Kitchens Project. At a Campus Kitchen, students use on-campus kitchen space and donated food from their cafeterias to prepare and deliver nourishing meals to their communities.
In different administrative and organizational forms, the Food for Peace program of the United States has provided food assistance around the world for more than 50 years. Approximately 3 billion people in 150 countries have benefited directly from U.S. food assistance. The Office of Food for Peace within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the U.S. Government's largest provider of overseas food assistance. The food assistance programming is funded primarily through the Food for Peace Act. The Office of Food for Peace also receives International Disaster Assistance Funds through the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) that can be used in emergency settings.
The Potato Control Law (1929) was based upon an economic policy enacted by U.S. President Herbert Hoover's Federal Emergency Relief Administration at the beginning of the Great Depression. The policy became a formal act in 1935, and its legislative sponsors were from the state of North Carolina. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Act into law on August 24, 1935.
Bonus commodities from the agricultural perspective, are commodities donated to domestic feeding programs that USDA acquires for unexpected surplus removal reasons or because the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) holdings acquired under its price support programs are not needed for other purposes, or are in danger of waste or spoilage. For example, if meat prices fall, USDA may buy beef and donate it to the National School Lunch Program, or if the CCC is holding an excess of cornmeal that is in danger of spoiling, it might donate this to the Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP/TEFAP). From the food program perspective, these are commodities that are donated in addition to the commodities that must be provided under mandatory requirements in food program statutes.
In United States agricultural law, Commodity Assistance Program is term used by appropriators to refer to a variety of domestic programs receiving food in the form of USDA supplied commodities. The term was formalized for the first time in FY1996 appropriations law to refer to the consolidation for funding purposes of three commodity donation programs that are authorized under two separate statutes: the Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP), Soup Kitchen-Food Bank Program, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP).
The Emergency Food Assistance and Soup Kitchen-Food Bank Program provides United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) commodities to emergency feeding organizations to help with the food needs of low-income populations. It also authorizes grants to states to help with the state and local costs of transporting, storing, and distributing the commodities to the appropriate local agencies and organizations.
The Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983 (TEFAA) was a supplemental appropriations act for FY 1983 that, among other things, explicitly authorized a discretionary commodity donation effort begun in 1981 by the USDA. The initial effort was limited to disposal of excess commodities held by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) by donating them to states. This law also authorized funding to help states and local emergency feeding organizations with the storage and distribution costs of handling the commodities. This is the origin of the current Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983 (P.L. 98-92, as amended; 7 U.S.C. 7501 et seq.).
The Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is a program that evolved out of surplus commodity donation efforts begun by the USDA in late 1981 to dispose of surplus foods held by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). This program was explicitly authorized by the Congress in 1983 when funding was provided to assist states with the costs involved in storing and distributing the commodities. The program originally was entitled the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program when authorized under the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983. The program is now known as The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).
The Food Stamp Act provided permanent legislative authority to the Food Stamp Program, which had been administratively implemented on a pilot basis in 1962. On August 31, 1964 it was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was later replaced and completely rewritten and revised by the food stamp provisions of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, which eliminated the purchase requirement and simplified eligibility requirements. Amendments were made to this Act in 1981-82, 1984-85, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2002 (most recently by Title IV of the 2002 farm bill.
The Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger (GPCAH) is a support organization for residents in the Greater Philadelphia region founded in 1996. Its mission is connecting people with food assistance programs including, SNAP benefits, food banks, soup kitchens and "to build a community where all people have the food they need to lead healthy lives".
The New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) is a nonprofit organization, which aims to “enact innovative solutions to help society move ‘beyond the soup kitchen’ to ensure economic and food self-sufficiency for all Americans”. NYCCAH works collaboratively with local, state, and national legislatures as well as New York residents and community associations. In contrast to other organizations, NYCCAH generally does not distribute food but rather concerns itself with providing technical assistance to groups which do while simultaneously affecting hunger policy at a more macro-urban scale.
Hunger in the United States is an issue that affects millions of Americans, including some who are middle class, or who are in households where all adults are in work. Research from the USDA found that 14.9% of American households were food insecure during at least some of 2011, with 5.7% suffering from very low food security. Journalists and charity workers have reported further increased demand for emergency food aid during 2012 and 2013.
The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) provides supplementary United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food packages to the low-income elderly of at least 60 years of age. It is one of the fifteen federally-funded nutrition assistance programs of the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), a USDA agency. The CSFP currently serves about 600,000 low‐income people every month.
