By Diane Duncan-Goldsmith, Iowa City I was Director of Nutrition Services for the Iowa City Community School District when, for the 2008-09 school year, direct certification was implemented. This process automatically certified eligible children for free meals based on families receiving SNAP (food stamp) benefits; all that was needed was to download a file containing […]
Food insecurity
Posted inEastern Iowa
Table to Table needs volunteers to help feed those in need while preventing food waste
Table to Table is in need of volunteers to assist with its work of helping feed people in need by preventing food waste. Since 1996, the Iowa City-based nonprofit has relied on volunteers to collect food from farms, restaurants and other businesses, then sort and package the food before delivering it to Table to Table’s […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘They need a place, we have land’: Church donates property for major Coralville Community Food Pantry expansion
“All of this could not be happening at a more opportune or critical time,” John Boller said at the groundbreaking ceremony held for the Coralville Community Food Pantry’s new building at the Coralville United Methodist Church on Thursday. Boller, the pantry’s executive directory, explained that “more of our neighbors than ever before” are facing food […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Olivet Neighborhood Mission seeks help restocking its food pantry
Olivet Neighborhood Mission (ONM) in Cedar Rapids put out a call for help on social media on Tuesday: supplies are running low at its food pantry. “Two of our main refrigerators are nearly empty!” the mission said in a Facebook post. “But in addition, it is hard to get several crucial food items from HACAP […]
Posted inCommunity/News
After more than a year of pandemic lockdown, Coralville Community Food Pantry reopens its doors to the public
Following a few brief remarks from its executive director, and a round of applause from supporters and volunteers, the Coralville Community Food Pantry reopened its doors to the public on Tuesday afternoon. “This is a really good day,” Executive Director John Boller said. The pantry’s staff and volunteers we excited to welcome clients back inside […]
Posted inCommunity/News
CommUnity’s annual fundraising banquet for its food bank goes virtual
The COVID-19 pandemic strained the resources of food banks across Iowa, revealing the high level of food insecurity in the state. It has also changed how CommUnity Crisis Services and Food Bank will hold its annual Hunger Banquet. The banquet, which is a major source of funding for the Iowa City-based nonprofit’s food bank each […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Urban Dreams community food pantry served more than 160 Cedar Rapids families in its first month
In its first month, a new Cedar Rapids community food pantry has served the needs of more than 160 families. The community pantry, which opened in mid-April, is a project of Urban Dreams, a Des Moines-based nonprofit. Elizabeth Buch, workforce development coordinator at Urban Dreams, said the number is great but that the food pantry […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Coralville Community Food Pantry offers music, poetry and dance in exchange for support fighting food insecurity
Over the last several years, the food insecurity rate in Johnson County was dropping. According to interactive maps from the organization Feeding America, it went from 13.9 percent in 2016 down to 8.2 percent in 2018 and maintained that in 2019. But a projection the site ran for the impacts of COVID-19 predicted a rise […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Facebook deleted Table to Table’s page without explanation
Table to Table has been hard at work throughout 2020, continuing the mission it started in 1996 to help feed people in need by preventing food waste. But since the beginning of October, the Iowa City-based nonprofit has been all but invisible on social media, because Facebook unpublished Table to Table’s page. “It happened on […]
Posted inCommunity/News
HACAP is holding a drive-through food pantry at Mercer Park on Friday
Hawkeye Area Community Action Program — better known as HACAP — will be holding a pop-up drive-through food pantry in Iowa City’s Mercer Park on Friday, between noon and 2 p.m. The pop-up pantry was originally scheduled for Thursday, by with forecasts calling for bad weather, HACAP pushed it back one day. The nonprofit serves […]
Posted inCommunity/News
HACAP will host two drive-through pantries in Cedar Rapids
Hawkeye Area Community Action Program — better known as HACAP — is opening two drive-through food pantries in Cedar Rapids. The drive-through food pantry this week will be on Wednesday, May 6 starting at 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Lindale Mall. People should enter off of 1st Avenue. Next week’s drive-through food pantry […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘The need is great’: Nonprofits in eastern Iowa work to meet families’ need for fresh food during pandemic
Living in a food desert — a place where there is limited access to healthy and affordable food — is not a new issue in eastern Iowa. But COVID-19 has increased the need for fresh food and has changed how nonprofits in the state can deliver that food to people who need it most. Organizations […]
