Food banks are distribution hubs that supply food to soup kitchens, food pantries, and shelters. Find your local food banks and food shelves with this handy search function and contact them to ask how you can help - with donations of food, money, or volunteer hours.

You can also reach out to your local soup kitchens to see how you can help. This search directory provides some soup kitchen locations by zip code or town/city. Not everything is listed there so ask around your local community for smaller and/or newer operations.

A few prominent organizations who serve up free hot meals to the community include:

• Feeding Chittenden operates a hot meals program in Burlington 6 days of the week
• Food Not Bombs in Burlington cooks and serves free meals throughout the week
• Martha's Community Kitchen in St Albans - contact Deb Riopel at (802) 393-1385.

Do your holiday shopping and dining and hire and support local Vermont Black-owned businesses, restaurants, crafts, and services using this great spreadsheet. Be sure to navigate through the tabs along the bottom to see all the different lists.

There are several ways to help Vermont Foodbank, the state’s largest hunger-relief organization: you can donate money, volunteer, or help with advocacy.

You can help Toys for Kids of Vermont in many ways! Donate money via a Paypal donation, drop off a toy at one of their barrel locations, OR purchase toys online and ship them to: 
 

Operation Happiness, run by United Way of Northwest Vermont, provides food and toys for nearly 1,000 families and their children (16 and under) in Franklin and Grand Isle counties during the holiday season. Drop off toys at any of the Toys for Kids of VT barrels in these counties, or at the St Albans Free Library. To volunteer your time, contact United Way at 802-864-7541.

Send monetary donations to:

Please make checks payable to UWNWVT and write “Operation Happiness” in the memo line of the check.

Steps to End Domestic Violence invites you to sponsor a child affected by domestic violence by fulfilling a holiday wish list. Volunteers will be provided with the age and gender of the child and the option to buy up to two gifts not to exceed $50.

Volunteers are also needed to accept presents and help sort them so that every child participating receives the items on their holiday list. Contact Bessie McManus at 658-3131, Ext. 1068 or bessiem@stepsvt.org. Alternatively, you can help this organization by purchasing an item on their Amazon Wishlist.

H.A.N.D.S. (Helping and Nurturing Diverse Seniors) is putting together gift bags for seniors and is seeking financial contributions in any amount, and/or donations of canned goods & food items, and gifts, such as hats & gloves for both men and women, toiletries, art supplies, crossword puzzle books, $20 Hannaford cards, and several other items. They have a handy chart showing what has already been donated and what they still need.
Use this form to let them know what you'll donate and to arrange pick-up or drop-off.
Learn more here.
Contact Jess at jessicahymanvt@gmail.com with any questions.

The Howard Center seeks gifts to support clients to buy food & essential items and enable them to participate in holiday observances. Give online with a credit card, or mail gift cards or a check to:

The Lamoille Family Center organizes two projects every year to make the holidays a bit brighter for area families: the Holiday Project and the Adopt A Family Project. Learn more about both.

The Salvation Army runs an Adopt-A-Family Program in Burlington. Contact Elizabeth Nicoll at elizabeth.nicoll@use.salvationarmy.org to participate - simply let her know how many children you would like to adopt and she will respond with the information you need. Last year they served over 362 families and this year will serve well over this number.