With the generous support of our community, Food Outreach continues to make a profound difference in the lives of nearly 2,000 clients across the St. Louis region who face the dual challenges of food insecurity and chronic illness. The medically tailored nutrition services we provide are essential in helping our clients manage their health, feel better, and enhance their quality of life.

In 2024, Food Outreach delivered 601,680 medically tailored meals to 1,974 clients across 144 zip codes in the St. Louis region. Nearly 253,000 of these meals (42%) were provided via home delivery, reaffirming our commitment to reducing barriers to essential nutrition. This past year, we enrolled 548 new clients into our services diagnosed with HIV or undergoing treatment for cancer, underscoring the ongoing need for nutrition services in our community.

Our clients tell us that the nutrition they receive fuels their bodies and supports them through difficult times in their treatment journey. Moreover, our clients share that the kindness and dependability of our team leaves a lasting impact with each encounter. Our dedicated team of 18 staff members, 21 board members, and more than 1,300 volunteers remain deeply committed to our clients and mission, which allows us to deliver services with the excellence our clients deserve.

Nutrition insecurity and hunger persist as critical challenges for low-income households throughout the region, and we continue to see an unprecedented need for our services. The vast majority of our clients (72%) live at or below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), less than $15,650 annually. St. Louis consistently experiences higher rates of diet-related chronic illnesses compared to national averages, and these disparities continue to widen. More individuals than ever are struggling in an increasingly difficult economic environment, particularly as they age, live on fixed incomes, manage multiple health conditions, and face systemic barriers to accessing nutritious food and economic opportunities. Food Outreach continues its commitment to address these disparities by ensuring that our most vulnerable neighbors receive the nutrition they need to thrive.

This past year, we strengthened partnerships with regional providers to reach more patients in need, further expanded our home delivery program, launched innovative healthcare pilot and evaluation programs, and developed strategic initiatives to enhance our organizational capacity. Each of these efforts furthers our aim to improve health outcomes and build the foundation for a healthier, more equitable, and resilient future for our community.

Food Outreach remains the only Food is Medicine agency in Missouri and western Illinois providing free medically tailored nutrition services to individuals facing both food insecurity and chronic illness. As we look to strengthen our role as a community leader in health improvement in 2025, we hope to expand our capacity and enhance our long-term sustainability.

Our goal is to advance the Food is Medicine movement in the region, improve client outcomes through nutrition, and reinvest in our mission through delivering high-quality, medically tailored nutrition interventions to those who need them most at the time they need them the most.