DANBURY – One year after opening its 6,000-square-foot Park Avenue location, Daily Bread Food Pantry continues to reach nearly 20,000 individuals every year, according to its Past President Debbie Landzberg.
Last month marked its first anniversary at 125 Park Ave., which dwarfs the size of its original 600-square-foot facility it opened in 1984 where it served a handful of people from a single shopping cart. At the height of COVID in 2020-2021, the number of weekly household visits went to about 800 from 80.
Now, the agency’s “super pantry,” staffed by 550+ active volunteers who span socioeconomic groups and many generations, is the largest food pantry in Greater Danbury, serving more than 1,000 food- and nutrition-insecure families per week.
Food insecurity is a critical issue for many residents in Greater Danbury and beyond. According to Feeding America, more than 516,000 (1 in 7) Connecticut residents struggle with hunger.
“We can finally better serve the thousands of families who need help both making ends meet and bringing home nutritious food,” Landzberg said. The pantry is open to all Connecticut residents though almost 95% of shoppers live in Danbury and surrounding towns.
Daily Bread is set up like a modern grocery store. Its innovative six-day-a-week super pantry allows guests to shop independently and free of charge with shopping carts and features bright lighting, cheerful signage, attractive wooden bins, glass door refrigeration merchandising units, digital signage, and point-of-sale stations.
“With our model, we’ve removed the stigma of visiting a food pantry and empowered our guests,” Landzberg said. “Our guest and inventory management system replicates the systems of a normalized supermarket and frees up our many volunteers to focus on customer service and keeping our shopping floor organized and stocked.”
Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Maura Ruby was inspired when she recently toured the facility.
“The leadership, organization, and care for volunteers and families are remarkable,” Ruby said. “Even in a thriving city like Danbury, rising costs and unexpected hardships create significant food insecurity. Daily Bread meets this need by providing fresh, nutritious food along with dignity, choice, and a welcoming experience for every family.”
The pantry also strengthens community ties and engages volunteers, helping to make Danbury stronger, healthier, and more connected while setting an example for other communities, she added.
The super pantry offers fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy items, meat, fish, and other healthy proteins, refrigerated and frozen prepared items, baked goods, and shelf stable goods like cereal, tuna fish, peanut butter, pasta, rice, dried beans, and, when available, numerous specialty items like coffee and tea. Selection depends largely on the donations and rescues received.
“Guests are given a certain number of points to spend each month based on family size and every food item is assigned a point value,” Landzberg said. “More nutritious food ‘costs’ fewer points to encourage shoppers to make healthy choices.”
Landzberg pointed out that Daily Bread is also building up its personal care program and is looking for donors to help fund it. Those include toothpaste, soap, shampoo, and deodorant.
In addition, Daily Bread has a social service center with a library of flyers from area agencies on topics such as low-cost healthcare and housing, energy savings, childcare options, educational programming, and more. Also, it has a book nook with books for young children, some of which are offered for free.
According to Landzberg, despite Connecticut being one of the wealthiest states, it has a food insecurity rate higher than all other states in New England.
“Households are invited to visit the pantry if their income falls below 300% of the federal poverty level ($46,950 for a single individual, $63,450 for a family of two, and $79,950 for a family of three),” she said. Most of Daily Bread’s guests fit into the ALICE category (Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed); almost 40% of Connecticut households belong to this group. “ALICE families live paycheck to paycheck and often cut costs at grocery stores by choosing the least expensive food items, which are typically more highly processed, lower in nutrition, higher in salt, fat, and sugar, and at the core of diet-related diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease.
With federal government cuts to food insecurity programs – such as The Emergency Food Assistance Food Program (TEFAP) – and the elimination of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) which funded food bank purchases from local producers, less donated food is available to Daily Bread.
And new restrictions on benefit programs for struggling families means more families are visiting the super pantry.
“The support of the community is more important than ever before. Though providing enough healthy, fresh food for all our shoppers is even more challenging now, cash donations to the pantry allow us to supplement shortfalls by purchasing additional nutritious items in bulk at wholesale prices,” Landzberg said.
To donate funds or food go to Daily Bread’s website: dailybreadfoodpantry.com.
