Fresh Pantries

Get Your Family Groceries With Us

The Fort Greene Fresh Pantries are open to all residents of zip codes 11201, 11205, 11217, and 11238 who need assistance getting enough food for their families
To register, just stop by any location listed below for the first time and let staff know it's your first time so you can complete registration

Fresh Pantry Locations

The Ingersoll Fresh Pantry is run at the Ingersoll Community Center weekly on Saturdays from 11 AM -

1 PM. The location is 177 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

The Farragut Pantry is run at the Church of the Open Door weekly on Saturdays from 10:30 AM –

12:30 PM. The location is 201 Gold St, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

In preparation for each Saturday distribution, the packing team works at the Brooklyn Navy Yard every Friday from 12-4 PM and Saturday from 8-11AM. Shifts are available here or at the Saturday distribution sites at Farragut and Ingersoll.

Interested to volunteer with us? We need your help! Sign up directly here: https://bit.ly/joinfreshpantry.

You will be provided further instructions the day before your chosen shift.

You can also reach us at info@onecommunitynyc.org, by calling 917-362-9238 or by completing the online form on Let's Connect.

Join Us in the Work

The Big Picture

One Community and partners are working to create a sustainable program in pursuit of the goals of eliminating food insecurity in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill and improving the purchasing power of local low-income residents. Our three pantries are staffed by multilingual volunteers and employees from the public housing developments we serve. The target public housing developments house 6,000 families and 14,000 residents in total. We estimate that 2,000 households and 4,200 residents at minimum should receive food in order to address food insecurity. The program supports participating families' budgets by providing a substantial and predictable amount of varied, nutritious, and appealing food every week. By mid-2022, we were serving over 800 families per week.

The Origin Story

Reacting to the pandemic, we organized a coalition of over 30 organizations to deliver groceries to vulnerable people who should not go out and who did not have other ways to receive food safely. Each weekend over 70 volunteers packed and delivered food to households in four public housing developments and other low-income housing with vulnerable individuals in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. The number served increased from 209 in late March 2020 to 1,700.

While assuring that the most vulnerable had access to food during the pandemic, the delivery program did not directly address the background food insecurity among public housing residents or the community at large. Some of the issues lacking in the delivery program were resolved in the pivot to a sustainable food security program. It allowed us to:

Offer choice instead of pre-packaged allocations of food.
Offer refrigerated and frozen foods, including dairy, meat, chicken, fish and frozen fruits and vegetables.
Offer a wider mix of produce including fragile ones like lettuce, tomatoes, and summer fruits.
Meet our patrons across a table for feedback and exchanges of information.

Fresh Pantries' Goals

Eliminate Food Insecurity

provide a predictable, ample, nutritious, and appealing assortment of food

Predictable: a stable source of food on at least a weekly basis
Ample: provide at least 3 meals per day for three days a week for each family
Nutritious: meet the Department of Agriculture nutrition standards
Appealing: meet the needs and desires of recipients regarding quality and variety

Improve Purchasing Power

extend the monthly food budgets of low income neighbors and enable them to

better plan monthly expenditures

Lessen the need of regular grocery trips for recipients to purchase food
Integrate the use of SNAP and other programs to provide savings
Expand the selection of household goods and other grocery store items

Make it Local

integrate hyper-local leaders, neighbors, and users into the operation of the program

to assure sustainability and maximize impact

Encourage local businesses to provide resources to meet the needs of local recipients
Partner with local institutions to expand the reach of the program
Recruit volunteers from the neighborhood who speak locally spoken languages
Incorporate local recipients into the development and operations of the program

Fresh Pantries Updates

With the help of NYS Agriculture & Markets, Fresh Pantries will now regularly provide farm-fresh meat, eggs, yogurt, fish, chicken, pancake mix and butter from New York farmers!