With prices spiking on basic goods, it is a challenge for many families to keep food on the table at home. In June 2023, more than 26 million Americans reported experiencing food insecurity. With such high food insecurity rates, there is no shame in looking for free food access to nourish yourself and your family. As a company working to fight hunger, we created this resource guide for you to find free food near you. Keep reading to see how you can find Goodr’s free grocery events and other free food resources.
Goodr Resources
At Goodr, our mission is to use technology and logistics to fight hunger and food waste. How does that work? Businesses and organizations partner with us to get food onto the plates of those who need it the most. Once these companies select one of our services, we handle the logistics of getting free groceries into the hands of recipients across the country. Most of our hunger relief events are single activations (except our Goodr Grocery Stores) sponsored by our partners, so they don’t happen all the time, but our team is working to bring our services to more cities, even more often.
Keep up with where our next Goodr grocery events are happening on our events page here: Free Goodr Grocery Events.
For more information, here’s a breakdown of our hunger relief offerings and how to find our upcoming free grocery events:
Pop-Up Grocery Markets
The Goodr Pop-Up Grocery Market is our signature free grocery event. It is a fun 2-4 hour drive-through event that provides a week’s worth of free groceries to anywhere between 200 to 1,000 families. Families receive a variety of high-quality grocery items, including fresh produce, meats, eggs, shelf-stable items, a choice of milk, beverages, and more – all at no cost. One of the most important aspects of our events is providing dignity of choice and experience so no one feels bad about getting the help they need. With a DJ at every event, a lively atmosphere, and the ability to choose certain products you want, this is not your typical free food drive.
Want to see when the next Goodr Pop-Up Market is happening? You can follow our events page here: Free Goodr Grocery Events.
You can also scroll down and sign up to be notified of upcoming events in your area.
Mobile Grocery Store
The Goodr Mobile Grocery Store is a shoppable 26-foot truck stocked with free grocery items, including fresh produce, milk, eggs, and shelf-stable items. The truck brings our signature free grocery shopping experience to even more communities in need of greater food access.
The Goodr Mobile Grocery Store is currently only available in Georgia and has stops around the state throughout the year. Our team is working to bring Mobile Grocery Stores to more states across the country.
If you are in Georgia and want to know where the Mobile Grocery Store is making its next stop, you can follow our events page here: Free Goodr Grocery Events.
You can also scroll down and sign up to be notified of upcoming events in your area.
Goodr Grocery Store
The Goodr Grocery Store is a sustainable, long-lasting, and easily accessible solution directly in a community for individuals to shop for high-quality, nutritious groceries at no cost. Though many compare it to a food pantry, the Goodr Grocery Store takes our free grocery shopping experience to the next level with a physical store experience that can be located within a community center, school, senior home, or other highly accessible facility.
Right now, every Goodr Grocery Store is located within a school and is only accessible to students and families at that school. As we expand the free grocery store model that the Goodr Grocery Store embodies, we hope to offer it in more facilities and increase access to communities in need.
Surplus Food Recovery & Nonprofits
Surplus Food Recovery was our first service at Goodr. It began when our founder, Jasmine Crowe-Houston, started to recognize the connection between the nearly 80 billion pounds of food that goes to waste each year and the more than 35 million Americans who experience food insecurity each year. With our Surplus Food Recovery service, partnered businesses use our technology to request a pickup of their surplus edible food, and our team manages the logistics of getting that food from the business to local nonprofits. Once the nonprofits receive the food, they distribute it to their members and the community so it makes it onto plates and is kept out of landfills.
We operate our Surplus Food Recovery Service all over the country with hundreds of nonprofits in our network. If you’d like to get an idea of a few of the nonprofits that we partner with and provide food to, check out our post honoring some of our nonprofit partners: Goodr Nonprofit Partners.
Other Resources
- FoodFinder: FoodFinder is an amazing resource that helps you find free food programs and food pantries near you. You can easily search your zip code and see what’s available near you or download their app for searching on the go.
- Google’s Find Food Support: When Google realized that searches for food pantries increased towards the end of the year, they created a dedicated page for finding food support near year. You can search your zip code to find food pantries, your local food bank, or other helpful resources.
- Government Food Assistance Programs: One of the best ways to get consistent and sustained food support is to apply for a government assistance program. From school meals for students to SNAP benefits, there are a variety of government programs that can help you put food on your table when you need help.
These are just a few of the resources available to help you get the best food assistance possible. We’ll continue to update this post, so you know what resources exist and how to find them.
Whether we’ll see you at one of our upcoming Goodr food events or not, we hope this resource helps you find the food assistance you need.
In the meantime, if you’d like to keep up with Goodr and receive updates on when our Goodr events will be in our area, sign up below.
