We met our goal! We'd still love additional monthly donors.

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Astoria Food Pantry is a volunteer-operated mutual aid group in Queens, NYC. We began in March 2020 with a handful of groceries out of a hatchback trunk; other volunteers soon leapt into action to bring a mutual-aid project to life. Since 2021, we have operated a community center at 25-82 Steinway Street. Here, we collect and distribute food, diapers, clothes, books, and more, with at least four regular giveaways every week, as well as outreach to Astoria Houses and Queensbridge Houses. We also host twice-weekly English classes, a game night, and an open mic, and our space is available for rent or borrow for others to use for community work or free events. We stock free masks and COVID tests, and our space requires masks during nearly all of our open hours, giving the community a safer space to gather during the ongoing pandemic.

2024 has been a busy year for us. With costs rising everywhere, more neighbors than ever could use our help, and we’re trying to answer the call. We are now open to the public at least 5 days a week with our regular operations, and our calendar is busier than ever with special events. We started in the winter with our We Keep Us Warm project, where we collected and bought coats, boots, and other cold weather gear, especially for recently arrived migrants. In the spring we added three additional weekly food rescues, and began composting unusable food with Resistance is Fertile. This summer we expanded our Saturday grocery program to include an open distribution - adding a second weekly grocery distribution to our calendar! In August we had our biggest school supply drive ever, giving supplies to over 300 students. And just a few weeks ago, we delivered over 600 books to people incarcerated in Rikers. Still to come in 2024 are our annual Free Boo-dega haunted-truck attraction for kids on Astoria’s Open Streets (this year’s theme is aliens!), another Pie-a-Thon where volunteers and neighbors pledge to bake pies for our holiday bags, and our holiday toy drive, which gets more popular every year.

We have been very lucky to have the volunteers and energy to do all of these projects - the fact that we have more volunteers than ever is proof that the community cares. But all of these projects have had some costs associated, and our reserves are running dry! We are scrappy when we can be (we rescue a lot of free food!), but in order to serve 600+ people food each week, we also have to pay our rent, keep our truck serviced, and buy literally a ton of fresh produce every month. We also want to expand some of our popular programs next year, and conduct some renovations to improve the Pantry’s accessibility and make it a more event-ready space.

We started 2024 with $100,000 in the bank, and in order to keep providing the same levels of service, we would love to start 2025 with the same amount. We fundraise in a lot of different ways, but our primary source is from direct donations from our neighbors, friends, family, and extended communities. At the heart of mutual aid is the idea that if everyone gives what they can, everyone will have enough. We are 100% volunteer-run and we keep our operating costs low, so nearly every dollar you give goes directly into buying food for the people. So long as Astoria keeps giving us what you have, we will help get it to the people.

$2,500 for 2025

Help us raise an additional $2,500 in monthly recurring contributions by January 31st 2025!