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Food & Nutrition
This year, we will focus on promoting nutrition and fighting obesity, a growing problem that plagues low-income families in the United States. McKenna's Wagon photo by Ken Cedeno
Food Programs
Martha's Table's emergency food programs provides help to vulnerable populations by providing lunch and dinner daily to hundreds of homeless and low-income people, emergency grocery bags and weekday meals to 300 children and youth in our programs. On weekends, we serve sandwiches and snacks and distribute bread from our facility on 14th St. in Northwest DC. McKenna's Wagon, our mobile soup kitchen, makes three stops around DC every evening to distribute meals. We also distribute bags of groceries to families and individuals in need at Martha's Table every month. We have formed a new partnership with Pathways to Housing that allows us to supply groceries to those who have recently left the streets for apartments of their own.
McKenna's Wagon
Emergency Food Services
School Based Pantry Program
Health & Nutrition
How To Help
Volunteers working at Martha's Table and at their churches, synagogues and work places prepare at least 1200 sandwiches, 65 gallons of soups and 65 gallons of beverages daily. Food ingredients are donated by farm, farmers markets, grocery chains, food stores, cafeterias, bakeries and private groups. Your donations of food, vegetables, and fruit can also help. To help, please follow the link below.
Food Donations
There have been some recent changes to the 1-stop van operations. All 1-stop volunteers must be at Martha's Table by 4:45pm to help pre-package soup for distribution. For more information, please contact the volunteer department at Turn on JavaScript!.
By the Numbers
- On any given day, 12,000 of DC's children, families, and individuals are homeless or in need of food, with about 82% of these homeless families headed by single mothers.
- The food program meets immediate needs by providing nutritious meals and snacks for approximately 300 children and youth, in an effort to break the cycle of poverty by providing them with the resources necessary to succeed at school.
- With over 100 partnerships with other organizations that rely on us to supply their clients with food and clothing, Martha’s Table serves as a vehicle for other agencies to provide their services.
- Pathways to Housing is an agency that provides housing to the homeless. We began a pilot program of providing 50 baskets a month to their residents, and we have increased this amount to over 100 baskets this month. However, Pathways has 600 clients, and they could soon request an additional 600 baskets each month.
- In 2010, we provided an average of 462 emergency food pantry bags A MONTH to our clients. This has gone up from about 300 bags a month in 2009.
- Even though the average number of bags distriburted is 462 a month, in November of 2010, we distributed 1107 emergency food pantry bags.
