Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children

The Dining Room is the heart of Rosie’s Place and welcomes any woman and her children in need of a meal, 365 days of the year. Over the past year, Rosie’s Place served 187,000 meals, a 23% increase from the previous year and an average of 500+ meals a day. We have seen 2,473 volunteers walk through our doors, giving 14,547 hours of time, preparing, cooking and serving meals, and cleaning in the Dining Room.

In the Food Pantry, we are providing a variety of nutritionally balanced groceries, including variations for those with dietary needs, for up to 350 women daily. We rotate proteins and provide foods from a variety of ethnic cuisines. Guests are welcome to visit the Pantry weekly, and we are open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. until we are out of food or have served 350 women. In the past year, our Food Pantry provided groceries to 8,890 women, a 7% increase over the year prior. We served an average of more than 323 women a day, accommodating 78,256 visits in FY25, a 6% increase from FY24. Our farm partners—Brookwood, Hutchins, Lands Sake, and BMC Rooftop Farm—provided fresh produce for our pantry shoppers. We continue to receive additional support through Reverb, an organization that coordinates volunteer drives to pick up produce at farms and deliver it to non-profits.

Our staff work hard to enhance guests’ experience in the Food Program. We regularly celebrate holidays with special meals in the Dining Room, and last year Rosie’s Place hosted its first gingerbread cookie decoration contest. We bring in DJs for special occasions and celebrate guests’ birthdays once a month. This winter, staff started a book club that was inspired by the free library located in the Dining Room. In the Food Pantry, we periodically distribute non-food items—approximately 20,000 this past year—from holiday gifts of blankets, hats, gloves, scarves and gift cards, as well as recipes, resources guides, and announcements of upcoming events.

The Food Program does more than prevent hunger: at Rosie’s Place it helps us provide nourishment, love, and community for our guests, and we use the Dining Room space for all these things. From meeting our guests’ urgent, basic needs to pausing for laughter and connection, we could not do this work without friends like you. Thank you for choosing to support Rosie’s Place through the GlobalGiving Foundation. We are grateful for your generosity and commitment to our work.