Food Assistance

Food Pantries | Fresh Produce
Grocery Clubs | Nutrition Education

Each year, LCS provides food for 60,000 people. The food we provide each year is enough for almost half a million meals. People take the food we provide and prepare meals in their homes. We encourage this because we believe that families that eat together, stay together.

LCS has 12 locations for food distribution in New Castle County and Wilmington, and one in Sussex County. Pre-registration or referral are needed for many of the programs. For details, please contact us.

• Stationary food pantries are located at St. Stephen's, Hope and Zion Lutheran Churches.
• Mobile Pantries bring food to Shiloh Baptist Church in Wilmington and Hope Lutheran in New Castle.
• Fresh Produce is available at St. Stephens in Wilmington and St. Philip's Lutheran on the Kirkwood Highway.
• We also sponsor Grocery Clubs. These programs serve a limited number of clients for an extended period of time.

In addition to food, we provide nutrition information and seminars that we believe will help people improve their lives.

Again, for details, please contact us.

Food Drives

Food Drives are a significant source of the food we distribute to low income families. Click here to learn more about how you can start a food drive.

Food For Thought Tours

We invite you to tour Lutheran Community Services.

Prayers in Every Bag and Box

Our goal is to insert a prayer in every bag and box of food distributed at our 13 locations. Here are two of our prayers:

Lord God, in January, we begin yet another year: a year when we are filled with so many hopes and expectations of what may come. And yet, Lord, in this season, the short daylight hours and cold temperatures continue to frame each one of our days. We pray in this season that you would warm us with your grace. We pray that you would let the light, the light of your Son, Jesus, who you brought into the world, shine on all those who so desperately need your love and your grace. For those who are hungry, give them the gift of food and a satisfied spirit. For those who seek shelter, cover them with the gift mercy. For those who are in distress, loss, or any kind of ailment, give them the gift of hope. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pastor Patrick Downes
St. Philip's Lutheran Church

God, we give you thanks for the many blessings you have given to us; for the shelter you have provided, the food you have produced, and for allowing us to support and care for others. May your grace work through us in everything we do this day. Remember your children, remember your promise, give to us a strong sense of your presence as we face the struggle and sin of this world and grant us the strength and resources to overcome them, that we may be a sign of your renewed creation. Amen.

Joanna Patterson, Associate Pastor,
St. Philip's Lutheran Church [Dec. 2011]