Food Donations

It takes a lot of food to serve meals to our guests 365 days per year. We rely on the generosity of donors to help offset the cost. Here are three ways you can help us meet our nutritional guidelines and join the mission to end homelessness:

Let us make the purchase for you. Want to help feed our guests, but don’t have the time to organize a food drive? Consider making a financial contribution and let us make the purchase for you. Our bulk purchasing power allows us to purchase three times as much food for the dollar compared to store bought. Make a gift online in support of Pine Street's food program or send a check payable to:

Pine Street Inn
Attn: Jack Nolan, Food Services
444 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA 02118

Create your own fundraiser. My Pine Street Fundraiser allows you to create a customized fundraising webpage to match your interests or event and engage your friends, family, business and community in the mission to end homelessness. Get started.

Coordinate a food drive. This can be easy and fun! Use your creativity to get the most of your food drive. Themes can help your drive target some of our most-needed foods, such as “Breakfast Club” to collect cereal, coffee, tea or hot chocolate, or “Pasta Night" to collect pasta, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and spices. Our most-needed items include: 

  • Whole Grain or Low Sugar Cereal or Instant Oatmeal Packets – 70 pounds used daily for breakfast service
  • Coffee (whole or ground) – Over 15 pounds used daily
  • Tea Bags - over 100 teabags used during breakfast service
  • Hot Chocolate Packets– over 50 individual packages used daily
  • Whole Wheat Spaghetti – 140 pounds are needed for a pasta dinner
  • Tomato Sauce/Diced Tomatoes – 70 pounds is used for a pasta dinner
  • Brown Rice – 150 pounds used as part of dinner meal
  • Essential Cooking Items – Oil, Flour, Sugar and Spices – used in all meals
  • Bottled Salad Dressings – Caesar or Italian

Read Our Food Donation Criteria.

Food donations containing 15 small bags/boxes or less, can received seven days a week, between the hours of 6:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. For larger donations, advanced drop-off notification would be required to ensure proper staffing and storage availability. Please contact Jack Nolan at 617.892.7780 for further information. 

Food donations are accepted at the loading dock of Pine Street’s Ninety Nine Food Service and Job Training building on Paul Sullivan Way in Boston’s South End from 6:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., seven days a week.

With advance notice, you can also schedule a time to tour our kitchen operation/main dining area and see how your donations get incorporated into our meals program.  Tours can be accommodated Mon. – Fri.  7a.m. - 3:30 p.m.  Tours may not always be possible during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season.  

For food donations and further information about Food Drives or acceptable food items, please contact us. For food inquiries after 3:30 p.m. or weekends, please contact our Main Kitchen at 617.892.7777.