NELA 2025: Feeding the Community - Libraries as Centers of Food Security: Welcome

Liz Bull (she/they)

elizabeth.bull@maine.edu

Liz is a Library Specialist at the University of Southern Maine (USM). She joined the USM Libraries & Learning Department in 2018 and as a USM alumna (‘17) arrived with a student’s perspective on the libraries’ resources. Based on the Lewiston/Auburn Campus (LAC), she monitors the Circulation & Information Desk, catalogs books for the campus collections, fulfills campus InterLibrary Loan requests, and assists the archivist at USM's Franco-American Collection. She splits the rest of her time between managing the campus food pantry located within the LAC library, working on various university committees, and plugging away at a variety of other tasks related to archives, circulation, and reference. Outside of USM, she is the Vice-President of the Maine Library Association (MLA) and is an active member of the MLA Conference Committee and previous Chair of MLA’s Academic Interest Group. Outside of libraries, she loves making art, exploring the great Maine outdoors, home cooking elaborate International cuisines, and - of course - diving into her latest read.

This resource guide is a companion to the Table Talk "Feeding the Community: Libraries as Centers of Food Security", from the 2025 NELA Conference. This resource guide gathers information related to the event, including information about the facilitator, links to resources mentioned, and examples of support materials.

What is Food Insecurity?

Food Insecurity is an official term from the USDA and refers to those who do not have enough to eat and/or do not know where their next meal is coming from. In the United States, approximately 47 million people, including 14 million children, experience food insecurity annually (Feeding America). 

How Can Libraries Help?

Many libraries are becoming their community hub and providing resources that address a wide range of patron needs. You may have a "Library of Things" in your library, so why not expand to a "Little Free Food Pantry" or partner with a local food bank to host communal meals? As one of the last 'third-places' in the U.S.A., and with many located in rural towns, libraries are uniquely positioned to help curb food insecurity in their communities.

If you are unable to operate a pantry at your library, you can still make an impact! Take the time to get to know what services are available in your community and start building a relationship with those services in order to provide your patrons in need with warm referrals to those organizations. Invite providers to your library for programming or other events, attend local provider meetings to be a community voice, and ask those organizations how you can help (food drive, raise awareness, fundraising, etc.). There are many ways to fight food insecurity beyond the pantry! 

This LibGuide is inspired by and uses some resources from the guide created by the panel discussion, "Pages to Plates: Serving Solutions for Food Insecurity and Nutrition Literacy" which focused on Massachusetts libraries and local food pantries and food insecurity resources. As this Table Talk aims to address this issue on a regional scale, some resources have not been repeated here; but I highly recommend that you visit their LibGuide which is linked below!

Pantry Space and Management:

• Create an little free pantry located outside of the library. It can be covered from the element and would be accessible 24/7. Staff can accept donations inside during library open hours and restock the pantry when they are able, but do not need to monitor it inside the space.
• If you notice that patrons are eating food in the same space as the pantry, consider redesigning the pantry to be an eating friendly space, equipped with towels, sanitary wipes, and trashcans (as an example).
• If donations to your pantry include expired items or are otherwise unsanitary/unsafe, consider these actions:
  • All donations must go through the central desk and be checked by a staff member.
  • Hold some community education programming about food safety and highlight your needs and expectations as a pantry.
  • Post fliers explaining sell-by dates and other food safety information.
  • If necessary, get your local Health Department involved to say “we can’t have you leaving xyz in this space”.
• Work with a gleaning program, often through your local farmers markets, to obtain fresh produce that you can distribute.
• Host a targeted food drive, asking for specific items that are needed in your community.
• Ideas for possible monetary donations: 
  • Purchase gift cards from specific grocery stores (they can make it restrict alcohol and cigarettes) or other local markets in your area; 
  • Purchase food tokens, or “Nutrition Incentives” from your local farmers market. In Maine these are known as “Harvest Bucks”.

Programming Ideas:

• Contact your local Boys & Girls Club to explore the possibility of offering meals year-round for youth at your library. 
• Partner with existing pantries and food banks in your area and offer a story time for children when they have food pickup. 
• Utilize your grocery store dietician for programming on a variety of topics related to nutrition. They will often do this outreach free of cost.
• Offer programming on topics that relate to food insecurity, such as: How to grow your own food with limited space; How to stretch a grocery budget; Easy, affordable meals you can cook at home. So many possibilities!
• Have food bank organizations come to your library and provide assistance to patrons with their SNAP benefits.
• Your local Food Bank may have a Nutrition Team that can also offer free classes and workshops.
• Have a budget line for purchasing food to provide at programming events engrained within your overall annual programming budget.
• Create personal care backpacks (health items and food) and give them to your local service coordinators for your unhoused communities.
• In your Teen center, craft a tree with leaves upon which the names of pantry items are written. A teen can pick off a leaf and bring it to a librarian in order to receive those items discreetly.
• If you use sensory bins in your youth programming,  make sure that you’re using non-consumable items. For example, don't use a perfectly edible bag of dried pasta. Instead, use one that is past it's sell-by date or even a different item altogether to suit the need.
• Explore an After School Snack Program or a Summer Meals Program. There are many ways to do this! 
  • Invite a dietician for programming
  • Reach out to local businesses for snack donations
  • Buy pizza or other foods to offer whenever there is a program running in the 'after school' hours or during Summer programming.
  • TIP: Designate an area where they can eat with a trashcan and a carpet sweeper that they can use to clean up after themselves.

Non-Perishable Pantries

• If food items are problematic for your library, you can always focus on other health and hygiene items such as menstrual products, deodorant, shampoo, etc.
  • Hold a targeted item drive where you specifically ask for the donation of health and hygiene items.
  • Collaborate with the Flow Initiative Foundation's Project Local Access (linked below).
  • Many organizations offer grants for obtaining these items. Here are a few, all linked below: The Pad Project (Pads Across America, Pads for Schools Program, Leap of Faith Program); YWCA: Menstrual Equity Access Project [check with your local YWCA chapter]; Simply the Basics; The Hygiene Bank.
  • Your library could explore purchasing a dispenser from Go Aunt Flow, linked below, which allows patrons to access menstrual supplies for free.
  • Have youth or students that are invested in ending period poverty? Encourage them to start a Period. Chapter in your community (linked below).