Food Pantry

Too many Mainers are experiencing food insecurity. One in five children in the county is food insecure, and people of color continue to be among the hardest hit by food insecurity.

Each month, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps 170,000 Mainers and 42 million Americans put food on the table. Nearly 75% of Maine’s SNAP households include at least one working adult, more than half include a person with a disability, 43% include an older adult, and over one-third include children. While programs like the Preble Street Food Security Hub and food pantries are here to support people experiencing food insecurity, they cannot come close to replacing the food supply and dollar value that SNAP provides. For every meal that food banks provide, SNAP supplies nine.

The Preble Street Food Pantry, located inside the Preble Street Food Security Hub, plays a key role in combating food insecurity in our community, providing approximately 20,000-30,000 nourishing meals to hundreds of families and individuals each month. For each family, the Preble Street Food Pantry provides a box filled with fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate food, in addition to non-perishable staple foods like rice and canned foods.

Almost all of the food distributed through the Food Pantry comes from USDA government surplus commodities; is donated by local retail and wholesale distributors, farms, and bakeries — including Whole Foods, Hannaford, Trader Joe’s, Jordan’s Farm, and Tandem Coffee Roasters; comes from our partner Good Shepherd Food Bank; or is collected in food drives by the faith community, schools, organizations, and businesses.

Preble Street is not alone in our community in providing pantry services, and there are numerous other local pantries serving people experiencing problems with homelessness, housing, hunger, and poverty, including St. Luke’s Cathedral, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Project FEED, Presente! Maine, Salvation Army, and many more. Please check online for dates and times that these services are open.

Additionally, caseworkers from many different agencies, including The Opportunity Alliance, Spurwink, Shalom, Day One, Portland Housing Authority, Avesta, and more access food boxes from Preble Street – if you are working with a caseworker from a local agency, please connect with your caseworker if you need a food box.

Good Shepherd Food Bank also offers a helpful map of pantry resources at https://www.gsfb.org/get-help/food-map/.

For more information about donating to our food pantry, including most-needed items and times for drop off, please click here.

Food pantry recipes

Click here for Preble Street Recipes page, which outlines recipes using shelf-stable ingredients found in found boxes.

FOOD PANTRY

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Food pantry recipes