Feed1st food pantry toolkit

Food insecurity is a well-documented modifiable health-related social need; however, its prevalence in the hospital setting is relatively unexamined (Gundersen and Ziliak 2015). Feed1st, which has been operating at the University of Chicago Medicine since 2010, demonstrates that hospitals can actively mitigate the effects of food insecurity for patients and their families at the point of care. Our research on food insecurity and our own experience in implementing a 24/7/365 self-serve hospital-based food pantry system are the foundation of our expertise. We have created this toolkit to provide hospitals and other healthcare organizations (“hospitals”) across the country with a proven model to address food insecurity among their patients. Feed1st has maintained its mission of providing access to food support in a manner that minimizes stigma using a no questions asked, self-serve, clinically-integrated, 24/7/365 approach. We hope this toolkit will allow other hospitals to replicate Feed1st, learn from it, and adapt it to meet their goals.