Little Free Pantry

A grassroots movement of neighbors feeding neighbors through the creation of little free pantries.

Give what you can, take what you need!

The mini pantry movement activates neighbor engagement with food insecurity by creating little free pantries all over the world (borrowing from the Little Free Library® concept).

It is a grassroots, crowdsourced solution to immediate and local need.

Individuals or groups (stewards) provide structures at their site of choice and coordinate supply. ...

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Give what you can, take what you need!

The mini pantry movement activates neighbor engagement with food insecurity by creating little ...

Read more
Funding Available
$500 per new project
Not in United States?
Change your region

To access funding

  • Complete a 30 Day Challenge
  • Report the impact of your project
Start a Little ...
$500 per new project
Start project

“I have learned so much, and I believe my students have too. I always knew food insecurity was an issue, but you don’t realize how bad it is unless you are living in it every day.”

Little Free Pantry
Beverly Porter

How to start a project on ChangeX

  • 1

    Create your project page

    Click the green start button to register and set up your project page. It’s quick, free and easy.

  • 2

    Complete a 30 Day Challenge

    Complete simple steps in 30 days to start your project and access funding.

  • 3

    Activate your project

    Follow the 5 Step Guide and your action plan to bring the project to life.

  • 4

    Share impact

    Share an impact summary to access the remaining funding and continue your project.

Great for

  • anyone and everyone!
  • wants to activate their neighborhood engagement and tackle food insecurity.
  • wants and/or needs to give.
  • is not easily able to meet everyday food and personal needs.
  • is a hungry kid after school or a home cook who forgot to buy an onion.

Little Free Pantry project essentials

5 Step Guide

  • Secure a location
  • Make a mini pantry
  • Talk about your mini pantry
  • Map your mini pantry
  • Don’t over-complicate it!

Time

Suggested: Your Little Free Pantry can take as much or as little time as you have available to dedicate to it.Setting up your Little Free Pantry will take a few days over time to get up and running (planning, sourcing, creating, stocking, launching).We recommend assuming approximately 2 hours per week to maintain it thereafter.

Resources

More information on how to get started and any resources shared by the Little Free Pantry

125 Little Free Pantry projects have already been started

See where

Meet the Social Innovator

We are not an organization, and we are not a non-profit. We are neighbors. We don’t have a lot of time, and our budgets are nearly maxed. But we see our neighbors’ daily struggles and feel called to do something in a way that reflects our shared values—compassion, generosity, and trust.

Jessica McClard

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Why a 30 day challenge?

    The 30 Day Challenge was developed by our Team based on our experience working with communities. We’ve learned that the first weeks are critical to build momentum and get off to a good start with any community project. Teams who complete these steps within the first month are much more likely to successfully complete their project!

    The Challenge is a series of simple steps that each applicant has to complete to get their project off the ground and unlock funding, if there is funding currently available for that idea in your region. Steps include watching a video and/or reading content, having a call with a ChangeX team member, forming a team so that you have support, having your first team meeting, sharing a team photo, and sharing a project action plan.

  • What can funding be used for?

    Once funding is received it can be used to cover direct set-up costs of the new community project. For example space rental, insurance fees, seeds and planting materials, tools, training fees; pretty much any materials you might need for a project that benefits your community.

    Funds cannot be used for the costs of work that has already been carried out, costs unrelated to the setup and maintenance of the new project, payments to group members for their work on the project. Funds can’t be used for the promotion of religious causes, non-charitable activities, sponsorship or fundraising events. Please read the terms and conditions for further details.

  • How do I know if there is funding available?

    On idea pages, if there is funding available for the idea in your region you will see “Funding available” and the region listed in the turquoise box. When you first login you will also see a green banner at the top of the screen saying “live funds near you” if there is funding available in your region. The ChangeX homepage will feature those live funds near you.

    A note on the waitlist: when all the funding has been allocated to applicants, new applicants will go on a waitlist. If some applicants that are in the fund don’t successfully complete the 30 Day Challenge their funding will be released and can be then allocated to those on the waitlist. To see if you are going on a waitlist check the main fund page, ideas fully allocated will have the note “Join the waitlist” instead of “Apply to start”.

  • What is ChangeX?

    ChangeX is a platform that connects communities to proven ideas and funding.

    By empowering local changemakers with proven ideas from social innovators and accessible funding from our partners, we aim to build healthier, more inclusive and sustainable communities. Our work is aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and together with our partners, we aim to impact 1 billion people globally by 2030.

    • Communities: Get the funding, resources and support you need to start impactful projects in your community.
    • Social innovators: Connect with local changemakers, access funding to scale your idea, and impact more communities globally.
    • Funders: Fund the themes and regions they care most about, with measurable impact, and at global scale.

    We believe that by bringing the best social innovations and the world’s changemakers together in a shared community, we can accelerate the spread of innovations across the world and have a bigger impact. Together we aim to unleash the potential of changemakers by enabling collaboration, by sharing knowledge and resources, by connecting changemakers across different disciplines and innovations and by opening up access to the world’s best proven social innovations to everyone.

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  • Lunch Out of Landfills

    Through waste sorts, Sharetables, and education around composting and waste management, students make their school a centre of changing norms around food waste and food redistribution with the guidance of a Staff Champion who receives a stipend and support every step of the way.

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