Cultivate Cares Food Network

Supporting food pantries and soup kitchens across the community

Hunger Relief through Food Rescue and Partnerships

Along with our backpack meal program, our team takes rescued food and redistributes it to over 115 pantries, soup kitchens, and other organizations serving our neighbors with food insecurity. Not only do these partnerships allow more food to reach hungry people, but other organizations get to leverage our network and storage facilities making them more efficient as well.

Food relief agency partners

Pounds of food redistributed

How does it work?

It’s all about logistics!

Side view photo of the Cultivate Food Rescue giant box truck with slogan "No Neighbor Hungry, No Food Wasted"

Cultivate’s refrigerated trucks travel around the community picking up excess food from grocery stores, wholesalers, food distributors, farms, and everything in between. The rescue team takes pride in both food safety and operational efficiency.

Once collected, the food is brought back to Cultivate HQ where it is inventoried, processed, and stored. At this point, the food becomes available via the online ordering platform. Pantries use this platform to see available stock, place orders for items they need most, and set pick-up or delivery times right from their phones or computers.

The result is an easy way for local food relief agencies to address their storage, transportation and bottleneck issues. And that means more nutritious, high-quality, perishable food (free of charge to the pantries) is on the shelves feeding our neighbors.

Making an Impact

Clay Pantry

Cultivate Cares Food Network helped Clay Pantry increase their pounds of food distributed by 728%, reaching an additional 724 families! How are we accomplishing this? Cultivate Cares Food Network (CCFN) is a food pantry support system that provides much-needed perishable food items to food pantries in our three-county area at no cost to the pantries. We are building the much-needed infrastructure and logistics to reroute existing supplies of food from those who have it to those who need it!

728% Increase

in pounds of food distributed by Clay Pantry

724 Families

Additional families reached due to increase in food distribution

$30,000 Savings

Clay Pantry increased their reach while cutting their costs

Why we do what we do

Key Statistics and Metrics

people across the three counties we serve are food insecure

%

of the population of Indiana is food insecure

children in our three counties are living in poverty

Pantry and School Partners

Backpack School Partners

  • Coquillard Elementary
  • Darden Elementary
  • Ivy Tech
  • Lincoln Elementary
  • Madison Elementary
  • McKinley Elementary
  • Monroe Elementary
  • Muessel Elementary
  • Notre Dame Grad Students
  • Nuner Elementary
  • Success Academy

Cultivate Cares Food Network Partners

  • Abundant Faith Family Ministries
  • Aids Ministry
  • Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
  • Apostolic Temple Village
  • Briarcliff Health & Rehabilitation
  • Brick of Hope Ministries
  • Broadway Christian Parish
  • Catholic Charities
  • Center for the Homeless
  • Charles Black Community Center
  • Christ Temple Apostolic Church
  • Christ the King-St Vincent de Paul
  • Clay Church
  • Doulos Chapel
  • For the Good
  • Gethsemane Church of God
  • Heart City Health
  • Heros Camp
  • Hope Avenue - Oaklawn
  • Hope Ministries
  • IUSB - Titans Feeding Titans
  • Keller Park Church
  • Lakeville United Methodist Church
  • Lasalle Park Homes
  • Life Treatment Center
  • Little Flower
  • Lydick United Methodist Church
  • Mac Food Pantry
  • Maranatha Missionary Baptist Church
  • Miami Village Church
  • Mishawaka Food Pantry
  • MLK Community Center
  • New Carlisle Food Pantry
  • Northeast Neighborhood Center
  • Oaklawn Properties
  • O’Brien Community Center
  • Our Lady of the Road
  • Salvation Army - Kroc Center
  • Southgate Food Pantry
  • St Paul’s United Methodist Church
  • St. Adalbert & St. Casimir Conference
  • St. Augustine Parish
  • St. Margaret’s House
  • St. Vincent de Paul
  • St. Vincent de Paul - St. Joseph Parish
  • Storehouse Food Pantry
  • The Grace Place
  • The Upper Room Recovery Community
  • Transformation Ministries
  • Veteran Affairs Center
  • YWCA

Backpack School Partners

  • Beck Elementary
  • Bristol Elementary
  • Chamberlain Elementary School
  • Chandler Elementary School
  • Elkhart Academy
  • Elkhart High School
  • Family Christian Development Center
  • Goshen High School
  • Goshen Intermediate School
  • Goshen Junior High School
  • LaVille Elementary
  • Mary Daly Elementary School
  • Mary Feeser Elementary School
  • Middlebury Boys & Girls Club
  • Model Elementary School
  • Monger Elementary School
  • Nappanee Elementary
  • North Side Middle School
  • Northwood High
  • Northwood Middle
  • Parkside Elementary School
  • Pierre Moran Middle School
  • Prairie View Elementary School
  • Riverview Elementary School
  • Roosevelt STEAM Academy
  • Wakarusa Elementary
  • Waterford Elementary School
  • West Goshen Elementary School
  • West Side Middle School
  • Woodview Elementary

Cultivate Cares Food Network Partners

  • Boy & Girls Club Elkhart County
  • Boys & Girls Club - Nappanee
  • Boys & Girls Club, Goshen
  • Brady Center
  • Bristol Community Food Pantry
  • Church Community Services
  • Elkhart Excel Center
  • Elkhart Schools Art Café
  • Faith Mission
  • Family Christian Development Center
  • Goshen Interfaith Hospitality Network
  • Heart City Health
  • Jimtown Food Pantry
  • Kingdom Impact
  • Middlebury Boys & Girls Club
  • Middlebury Food Pantry
  • Opengate Food Pantry
  • Project Scope
  • Salvation Army - Elkhart
  • Salvation Army - Goshen
  • Saving Grace
  • Shepherd’s Cove (Calvary Assembly of God)
  • Susanna’s Kitchen
  • The Village Community Center

Backpack School Partners

  • Argos Elementary
  • Bremen High School
  • Jefferson Elementary
  • Marshall-Starke County Head Start
  • Menominee Elementary
  • Moontree Studios
  • Washington Discovery Academy
  • Webster Elementary

Cultivate Cares Food Network Partners

  • Boys & Girls Club, Bremen
  • Bread of Life
  • Culver Food Pantry
  • David’s Courage
  • Marshall County
  • Neighborhood Center
  • Monastery of the Holy Martyrs
  • Oak Haven
  • Plymouth Baptist
  • Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ

Testimonials:

Cultivate has been a huge blessing for us. We have served almost double the number of clients the month of June in 2022 as we did in 2021, with the same amount of purchased food. The free food that we get from Cultivate has helped us tremendously.

Bread of Life Pantry

Our intent is to make a visit to a food pantry something to be excited about and not seen with a stigma. So whenever I see anything on your website that may be a smile maker for the kids, I jump on it. This month those strawberries were a delight to our visitors. They were better than the ones we saw at the grocery store. God bless you and all the Cultivate staff!

Lydick Food Pantry

Because of CCFN’s unique online ordering options we are able to order and provide specific items for our guests whether it be for allergies, culturally appropriate foods, etc. We know our guests and what they may want and check every week to see what we have to offer.

John at the Center (FCDC)

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