The River Food Pantry

The River Food Pantry The River is Dane County’s busiest food pantry. The River is South Central Wisconsin’s busiest food pantry.
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Services include free groceries and freshly prepared meals for pickup or delivery, online grocery orders, mobile meals, and after-hours food lockers. The River also redistributes rescued food and resources to local partners to increase access while minimizing waste. Since 2006, The River has grown to serve over 4,000 people every week in pursuit of its vision: a fully nourished community. The Rive

r Food Pantry believes in the power of social media to present all sides to the issue of food insecurity and encourages a free-flowing conversation between constituents on social media platforms. The River considers this page to be a public forum and reserves the right to republish posts and comments to this page in other communications both offline and online. Even though this page is a public forum, we respect the privacy of people requiring food assistance and we will not republish posts about personal food assistance needs that could be trackable to a specific individual. The River reserves the right to delete comments from external parties if the following occurs:
- Social media posts that contain profanity.
- Social media posts that are negatively commenting or personal attacks on the people we serve, employees of our food pantry, and volunteers.
- Social media posts that contain content that may be reasonably considered offensive, disruptive, defamatory, or derogatory. Examples include, but are not limited to, s*xual comments or images, racial slurs, or other comments or images that would offend someone on the basis of his or her race, color, s*x, religion, national origin, s*xual orientation, age, disability or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.
- Social media posts that are not about hunger and food-related issues. We appreciate all of you for taking interest in the issue of food insecurity in Dane County and getting involved with The River.

Big thanks to JX Truck Center for hosting a school supply drive for The River! We will distribute these popular items wi...
08/22/2026

Big thanks to JX Truck Center for hosting a school supply drive for The River!

We will distribute these popular items with some of our programs, and we included some of these wonderful donations in the Back-to-School CommUNITY dinner with Rooted last Thursday✏️📒🖍

📣Presenting The River Food Pantry’s 2025 Annual Report: https://bit.ly/river-annual-report-25Because of you and our supp...
08/21/2026

📣Presenting The River Food Pantry’s 2025 Annual Report: https://bit.ly/river-annual-report-25

Because of you and our supportive community, in 2025 The River was able to:
🔹Serve a record-breaking 21,329 people throughout Dane County a total of 387,762 times!
🔹Say goodbye to The River’s original leased space located at 2201 Darwin Road, where we served a total of 1,147,873 meals and 21,884,466 pounds of food over 19 years!
🔹Finish building our new, larger, purpose-built facility, allowing us to expand our services to serve more people in need!

Learn more about these accomplishments — and many others — throughout the pages of our annual report🙂

https://bit.ly/river-annual-report-25

Thank you Illumina, Inc. for packing 100 bags for the Munch mobile meals program!  This donation will go a long way to r...
08/20/2026

Thank you Illumina, Inc. for packing 100 bags for the Munch mobile meals program! This donation will go a long way to relieve food insecurity among children and adults in Dane County. 🥪🧃

And some even include some wonderful science jokes - "Why did the physicist and biologist not get along? .......They didn't have any chemistry." 🤣🧬🧪

Come to The River Café on Thursdays from 12–2 pm to sit down for a free freshly-prepared meal 🍽Today's Community Meal:Ch...
08/20/2026

Come to The River Café on Thursdays from 12–2 pm to sit down for a free freshly-prepared meal 🍽

Today's Community Meal:
Chili Dogs or Veggie Dogs
Polenta
Tossed Salad
Bananas
Lemon Bar or Fudge Brownie

Learn more: https://www.riverfoodpantry.org/community-meals

Nominations are open for the 2026 Inspired Generosity Award from the Crazy Good Turns podcast, and we would LOVE for you...
08/19/2026

Nominations are open for the 2026 Inspired Generosity Award from the Crazy Good Turns podcast, and we would LOVE for you to nominate The River Food Pantry!

The award recognizes people and organizations doing great things for others—which sounds a lot like the thousands of volunteers, donors, partners, staff, and supporters who make our work possible🥰

And there’s an exciting prize attached: a $10,000 grant for The River to further our mission AND an opportunity to share our story on the Crazy Good Turns podcast this December!🎙

The nomination form is short, but there’s one part where you can make all the difference:

👉They want to know your connection to The River and why our work matters to you. Maybe you volunteer with us. Maybe your company has supported us. Maybe your family has received support from us. Or maybe you simply believe that food is a right, not a privilege.

Tell them YOUR story about The River. That means more than anything we could write about ourselves.

Nominations are open through August 31, and we’d love to have as many of our supporters nominate us as possible!

🏆Inspired Generosity Award
💰$10,000 grant award
⏰Nominations close August 31
👉Nominate The River here: https://crazygoodturns.org/awards-2026

📍Reminder! This Thursday, August 20 from  4 pm -  6pm Join The River Food Pantry and Rooted at Hosto Hochi (2220 Tracewa...
08/18/2026

📍Reminder! This Thursday, August 20 from 4 pm - 6pm

Join The River Food Pantry and Rooted at Hosto Hochi (2220 Traceway Drive Fitchburg, WI 53713) for a Back-to-School CommUNITY dinner provided by Rooted’s chef, Kipp Thomas. 🍽️

The event will feature Rooted’s salsa bike blender and free farm stand, free clothing and school supplies, and snack and drinks from the Munch truck. 🚚

Free. No registration required. Kids must be present to receive school supplies and clothing. 📚 👕

Funded by The City of Fitchburg’s Healthy Neighborhoods grant.

FAM (Family At-Home Meals) presents this week: Biscuits and sausage gravy or veg gravy, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, Fren...
08/18/2026

FAM (Family At-Home Meals) presents this week: Biscuits and sausage gravy or veg gravy, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, French toast, spinach, tomato, and orange wedges 🥚🍊🍅 😋

The alternative option each week is a Sandwich Bag Lunch. 🥪

Our clients are invited to take home a free meal for everyone in their household once a week on Tuesday from 9am–3pm, Wednesday from 12–6pm, Thursday from 9am-12pm, and Friday from 9am-3pm 🚗

🍽️  The next Community Meal at The River Café will be served this Thursday, Aug. 20, from 12–2 pm 🌭🍌🥗This week's menu:Ch...
08/17/2026

🍽️ The next Community Meal at The River Café will be served this Thursday, Aug. 20, from 12–2 pm 🌭🍌🥗

This week's menu:
Chili Dogs or Veggie Chili Dogs
Polenta
Tossed Salad
Bananas
Lemon Bars or Fudge Brownies

Learn more: https://www.riverfoodpantry.org/community-meal

08/17/2026

Excited to welcome The River Food Pantry as our nonprofit partner for Glow & Gather this year.

Thank you, Rhonda, for saying yes to being part of our community giveback plan. Together, we're collecting feminine hygiene products for women and girls in our community, because part of gathering well is making sure everyone has what they need to feel their best.

Here's to more partnerships like this one.

Thank you to the team at West Bend Insurance Company for holding a food and supplies drive that collected 224 pounds of ...
08/15/2026

Thank you to the team at West Bend Insurance Company for holding a food and supplies drive that collected 224 pounds of pet food and baby products! 🐶🍼

They were inspired to organize this drive after volunteering at The River earlier in the year and learning that some of our most often requested items were running low🥰

Address

3301 Packers Avenue
Madison, WI
53704

Opening Hours

Tuesday 9am - 3pm
Wednesday 12pm - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 12pm
Friday 9am - 3pm

Telephone

+16084428815

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