Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children

With more than fifty years of experience listening to and providing for our community, the Food Program at Rosie’s Place is thoughtfully designed to meet the urgent, emergency needs of poor women and children. When our basic needs for food, shelter, and safety are not met, we cannot address our social and emotional health, much less develop long-term plans around housing and employment. This is why Rosie’s Place provides access to emergency services, with the Food Program as our cornerstone.

In response to the steadily growing needs of our community, and to reach more women, Rosie’s Place is growing its existing programming. During the first three quarters of our fiscal year (July 2025 – March 2026), we have served 167,435 meals, a nearly 25% increase over the same period last year. We set a program goal to serve 190,000 meals total and are on track to exceed that goal.

In our Food Program, we aim to remove barriers to access healthy and nutritious food with our Dining Room and Food Pantry. This means continually thinking through how to best reach our target population, reflecting the needs of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, varying age groups, and more. In our Dining Room we provide to-go options for those guests who do not have time to sit down and eat or who have to leave early to secure a bed in a shelter. We also make all our meals “rolling service” so that women don’t miss the opportunity to eat. We foster community in the Dining Room by hosting special occasions such as Black History Month, Pride Month, and our founder’s birthday with special meals and decorations.

In the past year Food Pantry provided groceries to 8,890 women, a 7% increase over the year. In the Food Pantry we offer both a bag of fresh produce as well as a bag of shelf-stable items, and match seasonal needs such as celebrating holidays or providing in-season fruits and vegetables. We consistently rotate proteins so that guests experience nutritional variety and source ethnic foods to better match the cooking needs of various immigrant populations. The Food Pantry allows women aged 62 and up to come twice a week, in response to the higher risk of food insecurity among seniors. We offer water to those waiting in line during the summer as well as hats and gloves to those waiting in line during winter. While serving more women, we improved our efficiency to cut the wait timefor those standing in line, to an average of just 7 minutes.

At Rosie’s Place food does more than prevent hunger: it helps us provide nourishment, love, and community for our guests. From meeting our guests’ immediate, basic needs to pausing for laughter and connection, we could not do this work without your generous support through GlobalGiving.

Links:

• More about Rosie's Place!