Lowcountry Food Bank

To unite our community in pursuit of equitable, dignified, and consistent access to food. The Lowcountry Food Bank serves the 10 coastal counties of South Carolina and distributed more than 42 million pounds of food in 2023. The organization helps fight hunger by distributing food to more than 230 partner agencies through on-site meal programs, homeless shelters and emergency food pantries to food-insecure children, adults, seniors and veterans. The Lowcountry Food Bank advocates on behalf of those who experience hunger and helps empower people to make healthy and nutritious food choices. Founded in 1983, we collect, inspect, maintain and distribute healthy food products from manufacturers, food distributors, the government, supermarkets, and farmers.

The vision of the Lowcountry Food Bank is to end hunger in coastal South Carolina. We continue to in

Goal One: While distributing 40 million pounds of food last year to families, seniors, children and veterans, we are multiplying the impact of our partner agencies, which distribute 89% of the food we procure.

Goal Two: Ensure equitable access to healthy food for the people we serve. We continue to innovate and diversify our food distribution models so that our neighbors can get the food assistance they need.

Goal Three: Provide a greater range of fresh produce to our neighbors, especially fresh produce, which comprises more than 30% of the food distributed.

Our Nutrition Initiatives department trains our community about hunger issues and nutrition education. We have held Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion training for staff focused on "Engaging with Differences"

The food insecurity rate remains high in the area we serve at 11%, equivalent to 161,430 adults, of whom 45,540 are children. Our work to ensure that every neighbor who experiences food insecurity remains focused and strategic while we continue to navigate higher food and transportation costs, food procurement challenges, shipping delays and industry-related labor shortages. Although the pandemic has continued to affect communities already facing underemployment, low income, and a lack of transportation, and access to grocery stores, we have continued to innovate, not only focusing on the food we distribute, but also on deepening our understanding and responses to the root causes of hunger and food insecurity and how these issues can best be addressed in the communities we serve. We have diversified our food distribution models, expanded our Food for Health initiative working alongside our health care partners, work closely with our agency partners/food pantries.