Extra Table partners with food pantries and soup kitchens to get food directly into the hands of the most food insecure in our communities, state-wide.
Extra Table partners with one feeding agency per city, unless established prior to 2018. We do not support summer camps, senior adult day care centers, or school feeding programs. Food must be distributed regardless of religious affiliation. Any organization that receives payment (charging Medicaid as a senior adult day care center) or is limited to serving one sector of the population (such as a school) does not qualify to be an Extra Table partner.
To become an Extra Table Pantry Partner and receive food monthly, you must be a 501(c)3 feeding organization or an established feeding program within a church or civic organization. You must have an active Board of Directors, hours of operation, a storage area, and set distribution rules.
Requirements of being an Extra Table Food Pantry Partner:
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Complete the application and return it to Extra Table
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Shelving is required for food storage. All food must be stored at least 6” off the floor.
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Health and safety measures must be in place, met and maintained
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Understand that Extra Table Staff or a Board Member will do one unannounced site visit each year
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Submit the simple monthly reports. Failure to submit reports two months in a row will result in Extra Table pausing or terminating your food shipments. We make reporting easy as it is critically important to our mission. We do not want to add more work to your plate!
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Send us pictures and keep us updated. We enjoy hearing from you and seeing our food donation at work!
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We look for clear and defined geographic service areas.
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We also want to review your client application process, who you serve, and understand how those applications are processed and renewed annually.
After you have returned your completed application, we will make arrangements to visit your site to review your feeding agency and start shipping your food! We are not government funded and unfortunately, money doesn’t grow on trees. We are a grassroots agency made of a very small team. The funds we raise determine the amount of food we can purchase and distribute. While we wish we could add everyone immediately, the odds are you might be on the waitlist for a long period of time. We typically add 5 Food Pantry Partners each March. Please stay in touch and be sure your contact information is always updated with us as we know pantry leadership changes.
We determine how to expand our Food Pantry Partner footprint in 3 ways:
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NEED- there is great need in Mississippi
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Logistics- if there are trucking routes that have space for added pallets, pantries along that route take priority to increase our efficiency
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Donor Request- if there is a donor that says they want a pantry in their hometown, they would like to fully fund it for the year and discuss future years; those applications take priority. The recipient food pantry will have to do a little added work with Extra Table as we typically do not partner with brand new pantries. We want to be sure there are policies in place, volunteers, and a source of food or revenue coming in from your community. Local buy in is extremely important to the success of our Food Pantry Partners.
From time to time, we receive donated food or have Extra Full Red Beans and Rice Meal Kits that cannot go out to our pantry partners on the monthly route, and we love to share. So, if there is already an Extra Table pantry partner in your city, or you may not yet be an Extra Table partner, we may still be able to work together to get food to the folks you desire to feed.
We are excited that you are interested in partnering with Extra Table! We commend your efforts to feed those who are food insecure in Mississippi, and we look forward to making an impact together.
*If you are a feeding organization outside of Mississippi, we would love to hear about your work. And if you are a vendor that wants to partner with Extra Table, please contact us.