Berkeley Food Pantry

To tackle food insecurity, the city of Berkeley has several establishments that provide groceries to those in need of assistance.

The Berkeley Center of the Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi, or M.T.O., Shahmaghsoudi School of Islamic Sufism donated supplies to the Berkeley Food Pantry on Monday in celebration of Eid al-Fitr, an Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan. 

Institutions from around the city of Berkeley are providing assistance to those in need this holiday season — filling hearts, minds and stomachs.

Whether you’re an undergraduate or graduate student, staff or faculty member, there are a host of services on campus to ensure all of your needs are met.

At Berkeley Food Network’s onsite pantry, clients visited 1,600 times a week in February 2020. This number increased to 5,000 in April of the same year, and has since remained constant, according to Berkeley Food Network, or BFN, office manager Erika Larson.

People's park supports an active community that remains entirely connected to the larger Berkeley community: materially, historically and presently.

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, so does the number of people with food insecurity, a reality Berkeley food organizations have been working to combat during the holiday season.

Today, local agencies are floundering in feeding hundreds of thousands of hungry mouths because of a decentralized and overwhelmed food infrastructure.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Berkeley Food Network, which offers free groceries to all Berkeley residents and affiliates, has seen an increase from 1,600 to 5,000 customers per week.

Food banks and pantries serving the Berkeley area have seen an increase in demand for their services during the COVID-19 pandemic.