Food banks or food pantries are non-profit charitable organizations that find ways to collect, store and distribute free food to the truly needy.
Most who help out are volunteers, and their funding depends largely on the government, non-government foundation grants, businesses and individual donations. Matching grant funds to individual donations are common.
The first food bank in the world was St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance in Arizona, founded by retired business man John van Hengal in 1967 and still strong today. While volunteering at St. Vincent's soup kitchen, John met a woman who came often and told him that she depended on the soup kitchen and supermarket dumpsters to survive.
