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Issues in Food Assistance—The Emergency Food Assistance System: Findings from the Client Survey

By Ronette Briefel, Jonathan Jacobson, and Laura Tiehen

Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Report No. (FANRR26-10) 3 pp, September 2003

Food pantries and emergency kitchens play an important role in feeding America's low-income and needy populations. These organizations are part of the Emergency Food Assistance System (EFAS), a network run largely by private organizations with some Federal support. This issues brief summarizes findings from a survey of EFAS customers. The survey found that, during a typical month in 2001, food pantries served about 12.5 million people, and emergency kitchens served about 1.1 million people. The majority of EFAS households participate in a Federal food assistance program, including two-thirds of food-pantry clients and 45 percent of emergency-kitchen clients. However, a substantial number of EFAS households do not receive food stamps, though they appear to be eligible for them.

Keywords: emergency food, food pantry, soup kitchen, community kitchen, emergency kitchen, food bank, emergency food organization, hunger, food insecurity, food security, food assistance, faith-based organization, ERS, USDA

In this report ...

Chapters are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.


See other reports in the Issues in Food Assistance series. Check back for new releases.

Updated date: September 30, 2003

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