FISH Hospitality Pantries

FISH Hospitality Pantries' mission is to prevent hunger in Knoxville and create true community. As a non-profit and volunteer organization, we are the largest provider of food relief in East Tennessee. Each month, FISH serves over 7,000 families, or over 21,000 people, providing more packages of food to the hungry than all other Knoxville pantries combined.    Our mission is twofold: to ensure that all of our neighbors have the nutritious food needed to thriveto form authentic relationships across religious traditions, ethnicities, and economic circumstances.  For us, sharing food is an opportunity to create true community—where all are welcome, everyone is treated with respect, and the voices of the marginalized are amplified, recognized, and valued. To achieve this goal, FISH provides food to people in a way that respects their human dignity. No one has to register or prove financial need. Instead, guests simply show up at one of our four Knoxville neighborhood FISH pantries and select the items they’d like to take home.

Soon after its 1986 founding, FISH Hospitality Pantries quickly attracted members of many Christian denominations and other faith traditions who shared hospitality values to join the work.  Today, more than 50 churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, and other faith centers actively support the pantries. Many businesses and organizations also support our work with donations and volunteers.   FISH Hospitality Pantries prides itself on being a true community of volunteers. We are a non- profit, interfaith organization led by a board of directors. Steering committees made up of volunteers direct the operations of individual pantries.   About a third of our pantry volunteers first visited a FISH pantry as guests. Their personal knowledge of hunger gives them invaluable insights, which ensure that our pantry procedures and policies reflect respect for the dignity of every person.    Over the years, we have seen how the volunteer-centered approach at FISH Pantries can have a ripple effect, becoming the impetus for driving positive change across the greater Knoxville area. Many volunteers use the experience, knowledge, and leadership skills developed at FISH to improve lives in their own neighborhoods or to join other community efforts in support of compassion and justice for all. •