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Food Banks and Free Pantries in Iowa — Find Help Near You
Across Iowa's 99 counties — most of them rural — a network of regional food banks supplies free food to local pantries, soup kitchens, and meal programs throughout the state. These organizations operate large warehouse facilities where donated and purchased food is received, sorted, and routed to smaller partner agencies that distribute directly to families and individuals in need. This page covers those regional food banks by area of the state, with links to county pages where you can find individual pantries closer to where you live.
Food pantries in Iowa typically hand out packaged groceries — canned goods, dry staples, and whatever fresh or frozen items may be on hand at the time of your visit. Most have a brief intake step and may ask for basic information such as county of residence or household size, but very few have strict eligibility rules. Soup kitchens and community meal programs serve prepared food on-site with minimal paperwork and are generally open to anyone. Because these programs are run locally, what's available and how often distributions happen varies from community to community. Call ahead or check with your nearest pantry before visiting.
Iowa residents who may qualify for SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — can apply through Iowa Health and Human Services. SNAP benefits are loaded monthly onto an EBT card accepted at most grocery stores, and the program is open to low-income households regardless of age or family size. To check eligibility or apply, visit https://hhsservices.iowa.gov/apspssp/ssp.portal or call the Iowa Food Bank Association's statewide food assistance hotline at 1-855-944-3663, where staff can also help connect you with a nearby pantry. Many Iowa pantries are enrolled to help clients complete SNAP applications on-site.
Local Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens by County
The county pages below list individual food pantries, soup kitchens, and meal programs with addresses and phone numbers. Contact locations directly to confirm current availability.
Linn County
Polk County
Scott County
Regional Food Banks in Iowa
The food banks below form the backbone of Iowa's food assistance network. Each serves a defined territory. If you are unsure which food bank covers your county, the Iowa Food Bank Association's locator at https://iowafba.org/ can help, or you can call the statewide food assistance hotline at 1-855-944-3663.
Central and Southern Iowa
Food Bank of Iowa
The Food Bank of Iowa, headquartered in Des Moines, is the largest food distribution organization in the state. It partners with approximately 700 agencies across 55 central and southeastern Iowa counties — pantries, soup kitchens, senior programs, emergency shelters, and school programs — to distribute food to families in need. The food bank also runs SNAP outreach and operates a regional distribution center in Ottumwa. Website is https://foodbankiowa.org/.
Main address: 2220 E. 17th Street, Des Moines, IA 50316
Phone: (515) 564-0330
Ottumwa Distribution Center: 705 W. Main Street, Ottumwa, IA 52501 — (641) 682-3403
Counties served: Adair, Adams, Appanoose, Audubon, Boone, Buena Vista, Calhoun, Carroll, Cerro Gordo, Clarke, Clay, Dallas, Davis, Decatur, Des Moines, Dickinson, Emmet, Franklin, Greene, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin, Henry, Humboldt, Jasper, Jefferson, Keokuk, Kossuth, Lee, Louisa, Lucas, Madison, Mahaska, Marion, Marshall, Monroe, O'Brien, Osceola, Palo Alto, Pocahontas, Polk, Ringgold, Sac, Story, Taylor, Union, Van Buren, Wapello, Warren, Wayne, Webster, Winnebago, Worth, Wright
Northeast and East-Central Iowa
Northeast Iowa Food Bank
Northeast Iowa Food Bank, headquartered in Waterloo, serves 16 counties across the northeastern part of the state. It distributes food to more than 125 partner agencies including pantries, soup kitchens, schools, churches, and nonprofits. Programs include a BackPack Program that sends weekend food home with children in area schools, a Kids Café after-school and summer meals program, and mobile pantry stops across rural communities in its territory. The food pantry locator is at https://www.neifb.org/find-help.
Address: 1605 Lafayette Street, Waterloo, IA 50703
Phone: (319) 235-0507
Counties served: Allamakee, Black Hawk, Bremer, Buchanan, Butler, Chickasaw, Clayton, Delaware, Fayette, Floyd, Grundy, Howard, Mitchell, Poweshiek, Tama, Winneshiek
HACAP Food Reservoir
HACAP Food Reservoir is part of the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, a community action agency that has served eastern Iowa for decades. The Food Reservoir distributes food to more than 150 partner agencies — pantries, schools, daycares, meal sites, and senior programs — across seven counties in east-central Iowa with the HACAP food locator at https://www.hacap.org/foodres. It also runs mobile pantry distributions and partners with several college campuses in the area to provide food access to students.
Address: 1515 Hawkeye Drive, Hiawatha, IA 52233
Phone: (319) 393-7811
Counties served: Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Johnson, Jones, Linn, Washington
Eastern Iowa
River Bend Food Bank
River Bend Food Bank, based in Davenport, serves 23 counties across eastern Iowa and western Illinois combined. On the Iowa side, it works with pantries, soup kitchens, and partner agencies in the counties listed below. A branch location in Dubuque handles distribution for the northeast corner of Iowa's Mississippi River corridor. River Bend also runs mobile pantry stops throughout its service area. River Bend has a pantry locator for distribution at https://riverbendfoodbank.org/. (For the Illinois counties River Bend serves, see the Illinois food banks page.)
Main address: 4010 Kimmel Drive, Davenport, IA 52802
Phone: (563) 345-6490
Dubuque Branch (St. Stephen's): 3145 Cedar Crest Ridge, Dubuque, IA 52003 — (563) 557-7474
Iowa counties served: Clinton, Dubuque, Jackson, Muscatine, Scott
Western Iowa
Food Bank of Siouxland
Food Bank of Siouxland serves the Sioux City metropolitan area and surrounding counties in northwest Iowa, along with three counties in northeast Nebraska. It supplies food to more than 100 partner agencies throughout the region — pantries, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, daycares, and senior centers. The food bank also operates a Mobile Pantry program that brings food directly to underserved communities across its coverage area. Website is https://www.siouxlandfoodbank.org/.
Address: 1313 11th Street, Sioux City, IA 51105
Phone: (712) 255-9741
Iowa counties served: Cherokee, Crawford, Ida, Lyon, Monona, Plymouth, Sioux, Woodbury
Food Bank for the Heartland
Food Bank for the Heartland, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, distributes food across 93 counties in Nebraska and western Iowa. For Iowa residents, it supplies partner pantries and meal sites in the southwest corner of the state — including the Council Bluffs area directly across the Missouri River from Omaha. A statewide SNAP hotline it operates at 1-855-944-3663 can help Iowa residents find food, use use the locator at https://foodbankheartland.org/food-resources/find-food/, or apply for SNAP benefits by phone.
Address: 10525 J Street, Omaha, NE 68127
Phone: (402) 331-1213
Iowa SNAP/food hotline: 1-855-944-3663
Iowa counties served: Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Monona, Montgomery, Page, Pottawattamie, Shelby
Statewide Food Assistance Resources
The Iowa Food Bank Association (website: iowafba.org) is the statewide organization representing all six food banks listed above. Their website includes a food bank locator, information on SNAP outreach, and resources for Iowa residents facing food insecurity. The statewide food assistance hotline — 1-855-944-3663 — can help you find a nearby pantry or walk you through a SNAP application over the phone.
Iowa Health and Human Services administers SNAP for the state. Eligible households can apply online at hhs.iowa.gov, in person at a local HHS office, or by phone. SNAP benefits are loaded monthly onto an EBT card accepted at grocery stores statewide. Some households that do not qualify for SNAP may still be eligible for other food programs, including WIC (for pregnant and postpartum women and children under five) or the Commodity Supplemental Food Program for low-income seniors.
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