Emergency food is only helpful if people can access it.

For some Ottawa neighbours, getting to a food bank isn’t as simple as making a trip across town. Health, mobility, transportation, and other barriers can make it difficult or impossible to pick up food in person. That’s where Feed The City comes in.

Feed The City is an Ottawa-based registered charity that partners with community food banks to provide reliable home delivery of emergency food. Food banks provide the food and identify community members who need delivery. Our volunteer drivers provide the last-mile connection, picking up food from partner food banks and bringing it to their homes.

The people we deliver to include:

Seniors
People with mobility challenges
People experiencing health challenges
Young and single parents
People without access to reliable transportation
Others who face barriers to accessing food in person

We currently work with 20 community food banks across Ottawa, helping extend the reach of emergency food programs to people who might otherwise have difficulty accessing them.

We don’t replace food banks. We help make the food they provide accessible to the people they already serve.

Our work is made possible by volunteer drivers who give their time to make deliveries throughout Ottawa, and by the community of donors, partners, and supporters who make the service possible.

Feed The City began in March 2020, when Ottawa went into lockdown and barriers to accessing food became even harder to navigate. For people already unable to easily get to a food bank because of mobility, health, or transportation challenges, the usual ways of accessing emergency food became even less accessible.

What started as a grassroots group of volunteers helping neighbours during an unprecedented time has grown into a registered charity and an established part of Ottawa’s emergency food network.

Today, Feed The City works alongside community food banks to provide reliable home delivery of emergency food to the people they serve who cannot easily access food in person. Food boxes are prepared by our partner food banks, and our volunteer drivers use their own vehicles to pick them up and deliver them directly to recipients’ homes.

Our volunteers make hundreds of deliveries every month, helping remove a practical barrier that can otherwise leave people without a way to access the emergency food available to them.

We’re a people-powered charity focused on one simple piece of the food security system: making emergency food accessible to the people who need it.

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Who we are

The Challenge We Face

In 2025, the Ottawa Food Bank recorded more than 550,000 visits to its partner agencies across Ottawa.

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

A visit to a food bank assumes that someone can get there, navigate the space, and get their food home. For neighbours facing mobility, health, or transportation barriers, that isn’t always possible.

The emergency food may be available, but access to it is not equal.

Community food banks are working hard to meet growing demand, but arranging individual deliveries and managing the logistics of a home delivery program can be difficult alongside their day-to-day work.

Feed The City works alongside these food banks to fill that gap. We coordinate the volunteer drivers, routes, and logistics needed to bring emergency food from community food banks to the neighbours they serve who cannot easily access it in person.