Introduction

Welcome to the Growing Healthy Pantries Toolkit

We are the five food banks of New Jersey – Community FoodBank of New Jersey, Food Bank of South Jersey, Fulfill, Mercer Street Friends, and Norwescap. We are fortunate to partner with hundreds of food pantries across the state. Our goal is to provide support, guidance, and encouragement. Your work should be celebrated as it is crucial to the betterment of our community.

In recent years, we’ve been inspired by our partners’ work to build healthier pantries that empower communities. To support this important work, we put together the Growing Healthy Pantries Toolkit of best practices, tips, information, and resources. This toolkit has the goal of improving the health and well-being of the community that you serve.

We hope that you use this toolkit to “choose your own adventure”. You’re more than welcome to jump to the sections that reflect your own goals.

Perhaps you’d like to start offering Neighbor choice or nutrition education. Or maybe you want to find new ways to communicate with your communities and spread the word.

Feel free to choose the topics that most interest you. You can return to this resource whenever it might support your work. (We’ll continue updating it, too!)

Thank you again for all that you do.