Where do our community members go when they are in need? Community Food Basket – Idaho Falls, serves more than 1,000 families each month—about 50,000 people each year—and 41% of these families are working families that don’t make enough to put food on the table every day. Families receive four days’ worth of groceries at distribution, and Community Food Basket gives away millions of pounds of food each year. Even more powerful? 43% of the people they serve are children who face hunger.
Community Food Basket also provides an important service by “rescuing” more than one million pounds of food each year. This is food from grocery stores that is near or past its “sell by” date and must be taken off the shelves. Rather than go to a landfill, this food is carefully checked and given to families in need. Food no longer fit for human consumption is sometimes given to local farms to make feed for their animals. As southeastern Idaho’s only food bank with its own warehouse, Community Food Basket also stocks rural food pantries that don’t have access to their own storage spaces.
Dave Manson, Executive Director of Community Food Basket, loves serving his neighbors in Idaho Falls: “You go to bed at night knowing you have made a difference in your community.” He also speaks of Idaho Falls—his home for three years now—in glowing terms: “We have thriving arts, nonprofit, and faith-based communities, a gorgeous outdoor setting with all the outdoor activities you could want within an hour. It’s a generous and supportive place with so much going on and so many people involved in supporting it. I love this place.”
We do, too! Silver Star is proud to serve Community Food Basket with a network connecting its 16,000 square foot warehouse—where their administrative offices are also located—to their distribution center via a remote server. Dave Manson says, “Silver Star’s internet service is consistent and reliable—that’s been extremely important to us as a nonprofit. We haven’t had to spend any additional dollars at all on internet-related issues.”
Silver Star salutes the important work of Community Food Basket. We are honored to partner with such a vital and important resource in our community!