What is a food pantry?
A food pantry is a charitable organization that distributes food and other products directly to those in need. Usually based on emergency or short term basis. (This is what we do!) For people like Hal who is 97 years old. He is retired from Disneyland as a bell hop in one of the hotels. I cannot believe he is 97, can you? 
What is a food bank?
A nonprofit that solicits, receives, inventories, stores and distributes food and other products to various charitable agencies which tends to charge a fee to agencies in order to cover their costs.
The differences between food pantries and food banks are these:
As an agency, we do not charge a fee but we do pay a fee for food received from our food bank. We are very thankful for the food we are able to get but we do still pay agency fees which for us can be anywhere from 600.00 to 800.00 per month. A food pantry is where the local community can come and receive food for themselves and their family for no cost so we get to know the people personally (which we all love). A food pantry keeps the food local to those in the area of the location or the general surrounding area.
This is Francisco- he has had both knees worked on and can barely walk. He brings us avocados from his tree.
Related articles (www.youarespecial.org)
- Bottom Line – Lingering joblessness taxes nation’s food banks (youarespecialblog.org)
- Neighbors who give to food pantries (youarespecialblog.org)
- Thanksgiving Dinner Giveaway and Food Drive in Orange CA You Are Special food bank/food pantry (youarespecialblog.org)
- Are other countries not battling the food insecurit and economic crisis we are? (youarespecialblog.org)
