Meet Berkeley Food Pantry, one of Thistle’s long term donation partners. For the past several years, we’ve donated about 300 meals per week to this awesome organization that’s dedicated to helping Berkeley area residents who face food insecurity. To make food more accessible to more people, BFP recently added another way to serve the community.
UPDATED August 9, 2021
The mission at Berkeley Food Pantry is simple: to feed the hungry. In the spring of 1969, Dorothy Noble began feeding area residents not from a formal building, but from her home. As demand grew, Noble asked her church, Berkeley Friends, to help. The Berkeley Food Pantry was born.
Offering healthy and sustainable food to as many people as possible is what we’re passionate about here at Thistle. That’s why we’re proud of our long term partnership with the Berkeley Food Pantry. Each week we donate hundreds of fresh, plant-forward, and super nutritious meals to the pantry, which distributes them to individuals and families facing food insecurity.
Food Insecurity
About 12.2% of Alameda county residents experience food insecurity, which the USDA defines as limited or uncertain access to enough nutrition, usually for financial reasons. These residents might be seniors on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, college students, or a family who might be able to pay an unexpected medical bill or buy groceries, but not both.
The Berkeley Food Pantry is able to feed Berkeley and Albany residents thanks to donations from the Alameda County Food Bank, the USDA, local businesses, and residents. This means that each month, 200,000 pounds of food that would otherwise go to waste is given to hungry people.
Food waste is a multi-faceted problem in America. Fighting it is good for both people and the planet. The more food we rescue from the waste stream, the more we do to eliminate hunger and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Berkeley Food Pantry director Dharma Galang points to these stats:
- Humans waste one in every three food calories produced
- The number of calories we lose to waste is enough to feed three billion people (that is 10 times the population of the United States!)
- The World Wildlife Fund estimates that food waste accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions
- 21% of freshwater is used to produce food that ends up in the waste stream
- 21% of landfills are made up of food waste
A Day in the Life of the Pantry
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Berkeley Food Pantry manager Aram Antaramian, who’s passionate about addressing inadequate access to food in his community, describes it this way: “We are almost entirely volunteer-run with over 75 volunteers. We start with disinfecting the pantry building and driving to local donors to pick-up food donations. Then we sort the food and prepare bags for individual clients.” Next up: delivering food to clients and serving walk-in guests and those with appointments.
The pantry’s goal is to help guests go home with food they want. Many clients have special requests and/or dietary restrictions. Volunteers do their best to accommodate and pack food people request. Aram works hard to source produce and healthy foods — like those Thistle provides, which are the most popular items. The pantry serves an average of 1,845 people per month. 29% of the clients are children.
The Pantry’s Home Delivery Service
Director Dharma Galang discusses the biggest change the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the pantry’s operations:
"People called and emailed us during the first stay-at-home order asking for home delivery because they were afraid to leave their homes. With help from volunteers, pantry staff, and Care USA (we partner in their "Care Package Relief Program"), we created an application process, database, and a network of drivers. We currently deliver to 289 households in Berkeley and Albany.
Many of our clients are parents and grandparents with children in their households, disabled individuals, elderly individuals, and young college students without cars. At the peak of Covid-19, we also partnered with the City of Berkeley's Health Department to provide groceries to people and households in quarantine."
Thistle’s Partnership with Berkeley Food Pantry
Here in the Bay Area, food pantries thankfully enjoy greater access to donations that are highly valued and very healthy compared to what you typically find in other areas of the country. The Berkeley Food Pantry is almost completely dependent on donors such as Thistle for the unique opportunity to provide quality, super healthy fresh food to guests.
The hundreds of meals we donate each week to the pantry are the same as those we deliver to your door: ready-to-eat, full of fresh produce, nutritionally dense, healthy, and delicious. We look forward to many more years of partnership, and the feeling is mutual. Pantry manager Aram reports, “We are overjoyed by our partnership with Thistle. Many of our clients come to the pantry with a specific desire to receive Thistle meals, and those meals allow those who do not have access to kitchens or who are limited in their abilities to eat healthily.”
Want to Donate or Volunteer?
Thistle is committed to putting healthy and sustainable food into the hands of people who need it, and we invite you to join in the cause. There are lots of ways to donate to The Berkeley Food Pantry. For volunteer opportunities, check out the Get Involved page on the pantry’s website. For more information on donating or volunteering, contact manager Aram at manager@berkeleyfoodpantry.org.
Meet Berkeley Food Pantry, one of Thistle’s long term donation partners. For the past several years, we’ve donated about 300 meals per week to this awesome organization that’s dedicated to helping Berkeley area residents who face food insecurity. To make food more accessible to more people, BFP recently added another way to serve the community.
UPDATED August 9, 2021
The mission at Berkeley Food Pantry is simple: to feed the hungry. In the spring of 1969, Dorothy Noble began feeding area residents not from a formal building, but from her home. As demand grew, Noble asked her church, Berkeley Friends, to help. The Berkeley Food Pantry was born.
Offering healthy and sustainable food to as many people as possible is what we’re passionate about here at Thistle. That’s why we’re proud of our long term partnership with the Berkeley Food Pantry. Each week we donate hundreds of fresh, plant-forward, and super nutritious meals to the pantry, which distributes them to individuals and families facing food insecurity.
Food Insecurity
About 12.2% of Alameda county residents experience food insecurity, which the USDA defines as limited or uncertain access to enough nutrition, usually for financial reasons. These residents might be seniors on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, college students, or a family who might be able to pay an unexpected medical bill or buy groceries, but not both.
The Berkeley Food Pantry is able to feed Berkeley and Albany residents thanks to donations from the Alameda County Food Bank, the USDA, local businesses, and residents. This means that each month, 200,000 pounds of food that would otherwise go to waste is given to hungry people.
Food waste is a multi-faceted problem in America. Fighting it is good for both people and the planet. The more food we rescue from the waste stream, the more we do to eliminate hunger and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Berkeley Food Pantry director Dharma Galang points to these stats:
- Humans waste one in every three food calories produced
- The number of calories we lose to waste is enough to feed three billion people (that is 10 times the population of the United States!)
- The World Wildlife Fund estimates that food waste accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions
- 21% of freshwater is used to produce food that ends up in the waste stream
- 21% of landfills are made up of food waste
A Day in the Life of the Pantry
Berkeley Food Pantry manager Aram Antaramian, who’s passionate about addressing inadequate access to food in his community, describes it this way: “We are almost entirely volunteer-run with over 75 volunteers. We start with disinfecting the pantry building and driving to local donors to pick-up food donations. Then we sort the food and prepare bags for individual clients.” Next up: delivering food to clients and serving walk-in guests and those with appointments.
The pantry’s goal is to help guests go home with food they want. Many clients have special requests and/or dietary restrictions. Volunteers do their best to accommodate and pack food people request. Aram works hard to source produce and healthy foods — like those Thistle provides, which are the most popular items. The pantry serves an average of 1,845 people per month. 29% of the clients are children.
The Pantry’s Home Delivery Service
Director Dharma Galang discusses the biggest change the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the pantry’s operations:
"People called and emailed us during the first stay-at-home order asking for home delivery because they were afraid to leave their homes. With help from volunteers, pantry staff, and Care USA (we partner in their "Care Package Relief Program"), we created an application process, database, and a network of drivers. We currently deliver to 289 households in Berkeley and Albany.
Many of our clients are parents and grandparents with children in their households, disabled individuals, elderly individuals, and young college students without cars. At the peak of Covid-19, we also partnered with the City of Berkeley's Health Department to provide groceries to people and households in quarantine."
Thistle’s Partnership with Berkeley Food Pantry
Here in the Bay Area, food pantries thankfully enjoy greater access to donations that are highly valued and very healthy compared to what you typically find in other areas of the country. The Berkeley Food Pantry is almost completely dependent on donors such as Thistle for the unique opportunity to provide quality, super healthy fresh food to guests.
The hundreds of meals we donate each week to the pantry are the same as those we deliver to your door: ready-to-eat, full of fresh produce, nutritionally dense, healthy, and delicious. We look forward to many more years of partnership, and the feeling is mutual. Pantry manager Aram reports, “We are overjoyed by our partnership with Thistle. Many of our clients come to the pantry with a specific desire to receive Thistle meals, and those meals allow those who do not have access to kitchens or who are limited in their abilities to eat healthily.”
Want to Donate or Volunteer?
Thistle is committed to putting healthy and sustainable food into the hands of people who need it, and we invite you to join in the cause. There are lots of ways to donate to The Berkeley Food Pantry. For volunteer opportunities, check out the Get Involved page on the pantry’s website. For more information on donating or volunteering, contact manager Aram at manager@berkeleyfoodpantry.org.
