Buying food that her child could tolerate put a strain on Emily Brown's finances.
Her young daughter is allergic to milk, eggs, wheat, soy and peanuts. The specialty food she could eat—a $6.99 loaf of gluten-free bread, for example—pushed the family's budget “through the roof.”
Those expenses contributed to a decision to seek federal food assistance. But the allergen-free food options in the federal Women, Infants and Children assistance program (corn tortillas instead of bread, and rice instead of pasta) were less than ideal.
So Brown and a friend opened the ReNewed Health Food Pantry in Overland Park, Kan., about a year ago to help lower-income people with food allergies.
Brown believes it was the first such pantry in the U.S.; a similar one has since opened near Philadelphia. She plans to help open another allergen-free pantry later this year in Missouri. The two also launched a not-for-profit to help low-income residents with food allergies.
“I was really just kind of disappointed to discover that the assistance that I needed wasn't there either,” Brown told the Associated Press. Her daughter is among the 15 million people in the U.S. that the national advocacy group Food Allergy Research and Education estimates have food allergies.
The ReNewed Health Food Pantry, open once a week by appointment in a local church, has so far provided more than 12,000 pounds of allergen-free food free of charge to about 20 families. Provisions—which include gluten-free breads and alternatives to dairy, egg and peanut products—are largely provided from manufacturer donations, food drives and other contributions. Clients must have a doctor's order saying the allergen-free foods are medically necessary and demonstrate that their incomes are at or below 250% of the poverty level, Brown said.
“I always say we could not have existed 10 years ago because the market wasn't there,” she said. “The free-from food market I think is like a $23 billion industry. ... Now is the time to kind of look and think about the least among us.”
