Oregon Food Bank

Oregon Food Bank CEO Susannah Morgan has said: "...10,000 people who work at the Oregon Food Bank, from its five facilities, to 21 regional food banks, and 1,400 partner food pantries throughout Oregon and SW Washington, are working tirelessly to meet the need."  

On their "food finder" web site I found 250 "food pantry" locations within 30 miles of Portland (135 of them are within 10 miles of Portland). This web tool does allow one to search by location and day of the week - but they rely on each pantry to provide address, directions (sometimes the address only takes you to a complex or a building with no information about the actual location), type of food program and the information about requirements and qualifications is usually incomplete or missing.

Urban Gleaners

Tracey Oseran, the founder and CEO of Urban Gleaners said in 2018: "We estimate that we’re getting food to around 6,000 people a week." Urban Gleaners website is conveniently organized to answer the question "where can I find free food today?" and this informative overview video clearly states that their supported pantries do not ask any identification or "proof of need" qualifying questions to obtain food.  Urban Gleaners is not associated with the Oregon Food Bank and therefore their food delivery locations/pantries may not be listed on the Food Bank food finder web site.

Birch Community Services

Birch Community Services, operating from a massive warehouse in NE/Gresham (Google mapped here) is a unique program that provides food to households in transition, underemployed, and/or with debt where at least one family member is working (or looking for work).  Birch also is a major provider of food to multiple food pantry "agencies."  Family member "participants" make weekly shopping trips to self-select as much as $1000 worth of groceries (and some clothing/work boots) at the Costco-like warehouse with an amazing variety/quantity of quality food provided they "qualify."  Qualification requires (1) $80 a month fee; (2) two hours a month volunteering at the warehouse; (3) semiannual participation in a "financial literacy" counseling/training session; and, (4) the ability to communicate in English (to be able to benefit from the financial counseling/training). Here's a youtube of an NBC News feature on Birch recorded in March 2014:  and here is a link to an excellent November 2021 article written by a participant. Susanne Birch, Executive Director and founder along with her late husband, established Birch Community Services 30 years ago.  She has said: "The accountability, combined with the finance class, gives people tools to succeed."

Sunshine Division

With a history dating back to a Portland Police Bureau initiative in 1922 to assist the families of 40 officers who were laid off, today the "Sunshine Division" is an independent nonprofit agency that claims to annually serve 15,600 Portlanders with shopping experiences and food, including a weekly delivered food box to "...homebound, medically fragile, and/or unable to leave their home, due to the Coronavirus..."

Catholic Charities Marketplace

From an email from Catholic Charities Food Pantry Operations Manager Kelsey Allan dated March 22, 2022:
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"...our main marketplace (aka pantry) location is located at our office on 2740 SE Powell Blvd. Our other two locations are located at Esperanza Court Apartments [here]and Sacred Heart Villa Apartments [here], these two however only serve the residents of our low-income housing properties in those areas and are not open to the public.
 
The marketplace at our office on SE Powell is not advertised as a public pantry with set hours and is primarily used by Catholic Charities clients M-F. However, we want to help as many people as possible so if someone is in need of food assistance, they can contact me directly (503.935.7154 or [email protected]) and make an appointment to visit our marketplace.

Clark County (WA) Food Bank

Located just across the Columbia River from Portland is Clark County, Washington which is part of the Portland Metropolitan Area.  It's far too easy to forget these geographical borders need not affect the locating of food resources.  The Clark County Food Bank web site makes it easy to see the map locations of 25 food pantries - and by clicking on each one you can see an address and hours but no qualification information.