Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry Inc

The Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry and Support Center endeavors to bring an end to food insecurity—hunger—in Bastrop County. The Food Pantry helps low-income Bastrop County residents regardless of age or race, through periods of transition by providing necessary assistance: nutritional food, toiletry items, emergency rental, and utility assistance, and nutrition and financial education. The Food Pantry works with the Central Texas Food Bank to supply the community several times a week with access to fresh grains, fruits, and vegetables at no cost to the client. They also provide specialized programs for seniors, individuals with disabilities, and school-aged children to ensure that the most vulnerable members of the community receive the care and support they need to thrive.

The Food Pantry’s ultimate goal with all of its clients is to go beyond just providing emergency food assistance by instead assisting individuals and families in taking steps toward healthy change. The Food Pantry does this by working individually with each client to increase their self-sufficiency through various support services: application assistance (Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc), financial assistance (rent/utilities), financial education classes, and information and referrals (legal aid, MHMR).

The Food Pantry endeavors to be a model for food pantry operations and to achieve financial independence. This long-term goal includes improving technology, marketing, and community/business support as well as ensuring that they will be financially supported to provide these necessary services to the community. This will in turn allow the Food Pantry to create lasting and meaningful change in the community as families learn to become more self-sufficient and increase their knowledge about nutrition.

In 2021 the Pantry served 3,277 people and distributed over 400,000 pounds of food (including fresh produce).

The Food Pantry increased their social media presence and created a style guide to ensure a cohesive message and style relating to their brand. By cementing their branding and improving their visibility they are attracting more individual donors and support, which increases their financial stability. They also market their programs and services to the community and perspective clients through traditional means of flyers as well as on-line through their website and social media. Furthermore, the Food Pantry is undergoing a capacity building initiative to increase long term sustainability in order to continue to achieve agency goals and objectives for the foreseeable future. Through this process they seek to answer three questions: Where are we, how do we get to where we want to go, and what do we need to achieve our organizational goal of sustainability. The Food Pantry adjusted their policies and procedures due to the COVID-19 Pandemic to increase the level of safety for their clients, staff, and volunteers, without disrupting the distribution of food into the community when it needs it the most.

The Food Pantry has been providing services to the community since 1987. Their dedicated staff and volunteers believe in the mission and work to provide compassionate and quality services to the community that they serve. They’ve made strides in diversifying their funding streams, which continues to strengthen their financial stability. It is the goal of the Food Pantry to further diversify their funding streams in order to continue to provide services without fear that loss of one funding source would inhibit their ability to serve the community. Another asset is the addition of a new building, which has improved donation drop off and service delivery. Furthermore, the Food Pantry has created strong, lasting relationships and collaborative partnerships with other local nonprofits (AARP, Home Health Care, Catholic Charities, Area of Aging, AGE, Advocacy Outreach, Family Crisis Center, ect.) in order to receive referrals and to ensure that clients receive a wraparound service of care that meets all of their unique needs.

The Food Pantry is working to increase visibility on-line to increase individual campaigns, which is a first step in diversifying their funding. They also are working to grow their school-age program by doing a campaign for the community to adopt students/schools to support the NIBBLES program long-term. They are also working on putting together a homeless initiative pilot to serve the unique needs of their homeless clients. They put together an on-line workshop to teach nutrition and healthy eating on a budget during the Pandemic to increase nutritional awareness to the community. Finally, they are contracting with an outside evaluator to start a capacity building evaluation.