Hamtramck’s only client choice food pantry

We want to welcome each and everyone to our pantry where you are seen, heard, and understood. We believe in the dignity of choosing your own food. Boxed food packages, where food goes wasted or does not meet your family’s nutritional needs is a thing of the past. That’s why our food pantry is a client-choice food pantry. We want everyone to be empowered to choose the foods they want to eat and feed their families thus reducing food waste and ensuring culturally relavant foods are available in our pantry.

Empowered Choice

We revamped our food inventory and started to think about the health impact we are having on our community’s most vulnerable population.

We know there is a link between chronic illness and food insecurity. We are making a conscious effort to make nutritious food accessible. This means making sure our canned foods are low in sodium, low in sugar, and low in saturated fats. The three key nutrients that impact chronic illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Our nutrition policy and best practices ensure our clients have access to fruits, vegetables, grains, and proteins at each food distribution. Our food pantry has a dedicated nutrition education corner, ready and at your service to provide information about nutrition, healthy eating, and even recipe cards!

SWAP nutrition program

Our food pantry uses the evidence based SWAP (Serving Wellness at Food Pantries) system. It is a tool that teaches the link between nutrition and chronic diseases, and how to choose healthy foods by using a nutrition-ranking system using a stoplight as a symbol: choose green-ranked foods often, yellow-ranked foods sometimes, red-ranked foods sparingly. This allows sight recognition of healthy foods, overcoming language barriers, and reducing health disparities.

Through our partnership with Wayne Metro Community Agency, we were able to purchase the SWAP program. It teaches the link between nutrition and chronic diseases, and how to choose healthy foods by using a nutrition-ranking system using a stoplight as a symbol: choose green-ranked foods often, yellow-ranked foods sometimes, and red-ranked foods sparingly. This allows sight recognition of healthy foods, overcoming language barriers, and reducing health disparities.

We hope our efforts in not only providing food but also ensuring our clients have access to nutrition education will help build a pathway to healthier lifestyles.

This is why we have designed our food pantry to follow a stop-light nutrition system.