Unlike the Cambridge Weekend Backpack Program or Home Delivery, Food For Free’s Food Rescue program reaches people indirectly, through our partnerships with more than 100 food programs.

Every year (or so), we ask these programs to complete a survey. These surveys help us to:

• Assess how well we are doing our jobs
• Identify places where we can improve
• Capture demographic characteristics of the people we are serving, like age, race, and languages spoken
• Understand how receiving food from our Food Rescue program affects these programs and the people they help

Ryan and Sarah just wrapped up our latest survey and we’d love to share a few of the things we learned.

1. Our partners are—by and large—really happy with Food Rescue

• 99% of the people who responded are highly satisfied with the Food Rescue program and the service they receive.
• 99% also say that Food For Free delivers good quality food.
• 96% agree that we deliver food that they want.
• 93% agree that our drivers arrive on time.
• 80% of respondents said that our drivers call when they are late. (That’s a place where we can do better.)

2. The demographics of those we serve have stayed about the same.

• 30% are kids younger than 18
• 49% are adults between 18
• 21% are seniors, aged 65 or older
• 37% of those we serve are white and not Latino/Latina
• 33% are African-American
• 24% are Latino/Latina

Among clients of agencies that collect data about language, we know that about 24% speak Spanish as their first language and 18% speak Haitian Kreyol.

3. Our partners have really good things to say about Food Rescue and the effect it has on their programs and clients.

A few quotes:

Food For Free has been a huge support in ensuring the smooth running of the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. They help make sure we always have fresh and nutritious food to serve our guests each night, even during the coldest of winter months. They’ve gone above and beyond in assisting our mission to help people experiencing homelessness. Thank you Food For Free!

We depend on Food for Free to help us provide healthy, nutritious food each week. Our guests, in turn, are all either homeless or food-insecure, and depend on the Friday Café to get by. Food for Free is helping us help neighbors who struggle to make ends meet, and we are really grateful.

Food for Free helps people on low-income/disability to receive fresh food, fruits, and vegetables that they might not otherwise be able to afford. Food for Free helps our CSRLC members to have easy access to healthy food options, which contributes to improving and sustaining their overall physical and mental health. Food For Free also makes our program a very welcoming, warm, and inviting place for new members!

And, just for fun, here’s a wordcloud we made that shows the most common words respondents used when they answered the question “How does receiving food from Food For Free impact your program?”