Every week, our Fritz Food Pantry serves over 200 households – providing food, essential items and a community shopping experience to anyone who needs them. As our Madison community, like most of the nation, experiences rising prices and inflation, the Fritz Food Pantry remains a necessity to those who find themselves in need of free quality groceries and self-care items.

Here are four ways you can help keep our pantry alive and thriving:

1. Volunteer

Our food pantry is almost entirely run by the amazing work of our dedicated volunteers! Whether you have a few hours or a few days, there are multiple opportunities each and every week for you to come and help our pantry run like a well-oiled machine. Are you someone who feels fulfillment by helping others find the things they need? Come help run the registration table or hand out fresh produce to customers! Click here to see our food pantry volunteer opportunities.

2. Donate...

Food: The biggest necessity in any food pantry! We provide all the critical staples, and we try to offer specialty items and meet dietary needs and restrictions as much as possible. While we have wonderful community partners that help us get the basics to keep our shelves stocked, individual donations from our community members make a significant impact on how many families the pantry is able to serve each week. Your donations help us fill in the gaps with non-perishable items we can't easily buy, like gluten- and dairy-free foods, culturally inclusive items, healthy snacks or fresh produce from your garden. Due to food safety issues, we can't accept perishable items that require refrigeration or are frozen. View our list of needed items.
Essentials: We don't just provide food – whenever possible, the pantry collects and distributes essentials like period products, toiletries and diapers. These products are quick to fly off the shelves, even with per family restrictions in place.
Shopping Carts: Ever wonder where we get our shopping carts? Like the pantry’s contents, the shopping carts are mostly donated from grocery stores or found around the east side and brought in by volunteers or community members. Having an ample number of available carts during shopping hours is essential to ensuring shoppers can come in, get their groceries and leave in a timely manner. Have any shopping carts lying around? Consider donating them to Fritz Food Pantry!
Money: Your financial donations allow us to stock our fridge and freezers with meat, prepared food, produce, dairy and more, or to fill in the gaps of items that we're missing. Make a gift to our food pantry!

Organize a Food Drive

If individual donations can make an impact, imagine what a food drive can do! Is your place of work or organization looking for an opportunity to give back to the local Madison area? A food drive is a fun and straightforward way to ensure those who need food and essentials have access to those items – you could even make it a friendly competition! Click here for more details on hosting a food drive.

Connect Us with Local Restaurants

Do you work in the restaurant industry or have connections to local Madison restaurants, cafés or food places? Restaurant food waste is a largely untapped resource for pantries like Fritz to give shoppers access to high quality, well-made meals and ingredients – and Madison’s food scene is growing increasingly impressive every year! If you or someone you know is interested in building a long-term relationship between a local Madison restaurant and our pantry, consider reaching our Pantry Manager Francesca

For more information about our pantry needs contact: