As Food Outreach embarks on its 20th year, we take a look back at everything we’ve been able to accomplish because of the community.  The staff and Board are excited about the new challenges in coming years.

1988 – Food Outreach starts with a group of caring people cooking meals in a church kitchen for seven of their friends living with HIV/AIDS.

1996 – Food Outreach opens a satellite grocery offering a variety of staple items to a client list that has grown well into the hundreds.

1997 – Food Outreach hires its first full-time Dietitian.

1999 - Our prepared meal and grocery programs are consolidated to one 10,000 square foot facility in midtown St. Louis – complete with an industrial quality kitchen and grocery center – providing a convenient one-stop service center. 

2000 – Food Outreach starts a congregate Monday Hot Lunch that is open to clients and a family member, caregiver or friend, to enjoy a 3-course meal served restaurant-style.

2002 – Food Outreach implements a Van Delivery Program (initially funded from Altria) to provide healthy meals to clients too sick to visit us.

2003 – Food Outreach partners with two Illinois AIDS Service Organizations to provide grocery and frozen meals.

2005 - Food Outreach enters into a pilot program with The Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine to provide our services to people undergoing cancer treatment.

2006 - The Food Outreach Board unanimously votes to officially expand our mission to provide services to low-income cancer patients undergoing treatment throughout the greater St. Louis area.  The need for the expansion is immediately evident – the number of cancer clients nearly triples in this first year. 

2007 – Food Outreach goes Trans Fat free.  Our Van Delivery Program is now active three days every two weeks and includes a growing number or rural deliveries. We serve 1,427 clients, ages 3-93, who reside in 137 Missouri and Illinois zip codes.  Our staff of 13 and 600 volunteers expect to provide 275,000+ meals in 2007.