CELIAC AND ALLERGY FRIENDLY FOOD INITIATIVE

Description

Our organization is a nonprofit food pantry that serves allergy-friendly food to low-income families. We are currently serving Portage and Summit Counties in Ohio. We have a small pantry located in the offices of Mobile Meals of Akron. We are not affiliated with Mobile Meals, but have been permitted to use a small area for our pantry. The pantry was opened in February of 2018. Our first month, we served 8 families. Currently, we are serving approximately 50 families per month. Each family is able to come to the pantry once a month. If there is one family member with food allergies, they can choose 15 items to take home. If there is more than one family member with allergies, they can pick 20 items. The pantry carries all gluten free items. There are also dairy free, peanut free, tree nut free, soy free, and egg free options. We provide meat and produce that we are able to get from the Akron Canton Regional Food Bank. There are not many options for allergy-friendly food at the Food Bank, but we have been able to purchase a few items. We do not have enough income to qualify to purchase food through a distributor, so our food is purchased from local grocery stores, and online stores such as Amazon.com and Vitacost. We also provide a gluten free recipe in our newsletter each month and try to provide the main ingredients for that recipe. At this time, we are completely volunteer-based.