In Dallas' food deserts, community gardens ease — but don't end — hunger pangs

In 2014, the community organization Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha piloted a community-based Food Buying Club in Philadelphia. This initiative allowed local residents to buy food in bulk at wholesale prices. The goal was to strengthen food security and combat the lack of affordable and nutritious food in their neighborhood. Despite distributing over 62,000 pounds of fresh produce, the program shut down due to financial reasons. Now, after forming an advisory council and working on their business strategy with others in the community, the club is reopening and is looking to expand across the city.

The Monarch Food Pantry and The Huddle help combat food insecurity by ensuring college students have consistent access to food. About 1,100 to 1,900 people come to the pantry each month, and it’s available 24/7 to anyone with a university ID.

The Double Trellis Food Initiative aims to improve the quality of meals food-insecure residents receive from a vast network of food banks, soup kitchens, organizations, and agencies. In 2024, the initiative distributed more than 55,000 meals and began a workforce development program for juvenile offenders.

Wimberly’s Roots, a community garden and kitchen located in one of Georgia's food deserts, has increased access to healthy food through their monthly cooking lessons and partnership with the Boys and Girls Club.

We Don’t Waste serves more than 100 hunger relief organizations across the city and has saved and redistributed 220 million servings of food to date. The team of staff and volunteers who recover and distribute food to the community has not only helped prevent food waste, but also greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental consequences, all while feeding locals in need.

Community fridges, like The Friendly Fridge, popped up during the pandemic as a way to get food to people in need, as the pandemic highlighted nationwide food insecurity issues. The fridges survive on donations from community members, other organizations and local restaurants and grocery stores. It’s estimated that about 250 people will grab something from The Friendly Fridge each day.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic making access to groceries more difficult, The Walker River Paiute Tribe created a food pantry to support members of the tribe and local farmers. The food pantry has since become the largest in the state, by volume of distributed food, having distributed about 6,500 bags of food to over 355 households.

The UGA Garden works with Trader Joe’s to gather viable produce the grocery chain gets rid of each Sunday. Student workers go through the food each week, compost what has gone bad, and use the rest to make meals for those in need. The organizations has gathered over 330,000 pounds of food so far and deliver over 700 meals per month.

Athens Community Fridge works to combat food insecurity by installing stocked community refrigerators available to the public anytime they need it. Community Fridges help combat the stigma surrounding food insecurity by allowing those in need to access food independently without going to traditional food banks.

At Aunt Bette's Community Pantry in Dallas, people receiving donated food are treated with dignity and given choices that can have both psychological and nutritional benefits. A client-choice food pantry mimics a grocery store, except at this one people shop by appointment to fill their free, biweekly allotment. Volunteers help shoppers with health advice and also track inventory, so that unpopular items get discontinued. When people aren't handed a box with a take-it-or-leave-it selection, they waste less food and end up opting for healthier choices (with some helpful but not overbearing nudges).