Did you know that one out of three kids living in Yavapai County wake each day unsure of getting enough to eat? Food insecurity (lack of access to enough nutritious food to support an active, healthy life) also strikes one in five Yavapai County adults and one in seven seniors.

If you are looking for a way to help, consider joining the Yavapai Food Neighbors Project. It’s an effective, highly successful community program that makes it easy to share food with hungry neighbors by providing regular food donations to local food banks, year-round.

Food providers are lifelines for individuals struggling with hunger, and donating food is one of the ways concerned individuals can lend a hand to those who suffer with food insecurity. Unfortunately, food banks struggle with periods of feast and famine: enjoying large donations of food around holidays, but turning hungry people away when donations dwindle and no longer meet community needs.

According to Bob Painter, Yavapai Food Neighbor Project District Coordinator, concerned individuals throughout Yavapai County have donated nearly a million pounds of food to the Food Neighbor Project since the first collection in the Verde Valley in 2013. That roughly equates to 11,000 pounds of food per month and a total of 830,000 meals for hungry neighbors. Prescott donors supplied over 20,000 pounds of food during the February 2021 collection, continuing a trend of record-breaking donations. Food donations are typically low during the spring and summer, so that extra food was a boon to Prescott area food banks and schools.

According to 2014 data, Yavapai County has a food insecurity rate of 17%, which is higher than the national average. One green bag, filled with non-perishable, nutritious food, can help fill food bank shelves and nourish more than 36,000 people in Yavapai County who are unsure of getting enough to eat each day.

How It Works

Our simple system is built around 2 kinds of volunteers: Food Donors and Neighborhood Coordinators

Sign Up
Neighborhood Coordinators sign up friends and neighbors to be regular Food Donors. Every Food Donor gets our reusable green bag.

Shop for a Little Extra
Each week when Food Donors go food shopping, they buy an extra nonperishable item (or two) for hungry neighbors, take it home and store it in the bag.

Leave the Bag
Every two months—on the second Saturday of every even month—Food Donors have bag available for pickup.

Deliver the Food
Neighborhood Coordinators pick up all the full green bags in their neighborhoods and leave the empty ones for next time. They take the bags to the local food bank (or other designated location) where volunteers are waiting to unload their cars, empty the bags, and sort all the food.