Research & Insights
Centre County Community Hunger Mapping
Beyond the Box
Nearly 20,000 Centre County residents, including more than 3,500 children, experienced food insecurity in 2024. This Community Hunger Mapping report examines where hunger is concentrated, the barriers neighbors face in accessing food, and the underlying factors driving food insecurity. Drawing on community surveys, local data, and food pantry perspectives, the report identifies opportunities to strengthen food access and offers actionable recommendations for reducing hunger across Centre County.
Understanding The Research
About This Research
In 2024, one in eight residents of Centre County was unsure where or how they would get their next meal. Nearly 20,000 people, including more than 3,500 children, experienced food insecurity at some point during the year. The heavy weight of food insecurity is not evenly distributed across the county; though it burdens residents of every community in Centre County, including members of the university community centered in State College, the degree to which it does so varies substantially by demography, geography, and a panoply of other contributing factors.
This Community Hunger Mapping report seeks to understand the dispersion, experiences and root causes of food insecurity within and across Centre County. Community-engaged methods were used throughout the research process so that food insecurity and the charitable food system’s response to it could be accurately and compassionately described in this document. The perspectives of neighbors facing food insecurity as expressed through surveys conducted at food pantries across the county are emphasized.
Listening sessions and agency surveys enabled the inclusion of the views of charitable food providers across the county as well. Central Pennsylvania Food Bank (CPFB) researchers visited several pantries in the county that did not host neighbor surveys to collect additional observational data and ensure that the charitable food network could be depicted holistically. Quantitative analysis of secondary data from both public and private sources, such as the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and CPFB’s own internal records, is included throughout to contextualize the qualitative and primary data. This mixed-methods process allows the final product to provide a comprehensive view of the Centre County charitable food landscape.
This project seeks to guide lasting and meaningful improvements in the experiences of food insecure neighbors while simultaneously making progress toward ending hunger in the future. Therefore, this document contains a number of specific, detailed, and actionable recommendations that, if implemented collaboratively by food pantries, social service organizations, health systems, and other stakeholders throughout and beyond Centre County, can help us together move further towards a county where no one goes hungry.
What The Research Reveals
Key Findings
Approach 1: Strengthening and Increasing the Accessibility of the Charitable Food System
Centre County’s charitable food network demonstrably reduces hunger across the county. Households who visit food pantries more often over the course of a year are less likely to experience very low food security than those with similar incomes who visit less frequently.
Survey participants who visited food pantries more than once per month have a food insecurity rate that is 48% lower than those who visited quarterly or less; this means that additional visits can cut hunger in half. Similarly, very low food security rates were 29% lower among households who visited more than once per month than among those who visited more than quarterly but less than monthly (5-12 times a year).
The Centre County charitable food network’s impact on hunger is bolstered by several key strengths. Geographic pantry access is strong, as fully 96% of food insecure residents of the county live in census tracts within 15 minutes of two or more pantries, which is excellent access compared to the fifteen other counties where CPFB has already completed Community Hunger Mapping projects. Furthermore, two thirds of survey participants reported receiving food they want “often or aways” when they visit food pantries, including many neighbors who stated that food pantries helped them eat healthier. While there is still room to improve, these robust food offerings are of particular importance given the high rate of chronic health conditions observed among pantry visitors in Centre County. Lastly, very few neighbors reported experiencing judgment while utilizing a food pantry, at just 3% of all surveyed households.
Approach 1.1: Simplify intake processes and requirements to lower access barriers.
Many pantries across Centre County have intake policies that reduce food access and are not compliant with USDA or Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture regulations for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the State Food Purchase Program (SFPP).
For instance, several pantries require the provision of proof of income, copies of leases/rental agreements, or referrals from other agencies as a precondition to service. At one pantry, researchers observed a neighbor being required to verify their monthly income by calling their bank prior to receiving food. A completed self-declaration of need form is the sole piece of documentation necessary to receive food at TEFAP or SFPP-participant agencies according to Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture guidance. Additional proof of what is self-declared on the form may never be required. While pantries may ask other questions in order to improve their services or help connect neighbors to other resources, these should be clearly optional and may not be required to receive food.
Most pantry visitors stated that they had positive interactions with the charitable food system in Centre County. This is excellent and means that charitable food providers in Centre County already strive to treat every neighbor they serve with respect. Simplifying intake will further improve pantry experiences by ensuring that the charitable food system can reach everyone who needs help, without deterring anyone because of onerous administrative burdens.
Approach 1.2: Increase off-hours access, including evening and weekend distributions.
Only about half of Centre County’s food insecure individuals who reside in census tracts for which specific estimates are available can reach a weekend or evening food distribution within a 15-minute drive time.
Off-hours distributions are crucial because households with children are the most likely to have reported experiencing very low food security, with rates of 44% compared to 31% among all pantry visitors. Households with children were also the most likely to report working full time, which often means that these households are unable to visit daytime pantries. One in five households with children (19%) reported trouble accessing pantries due to their hours, compared to one in fourteen total pantry visitors (7%). It is important to note that this one in five proportion was found among households who were surveyed at a pantry; this therefore means that those with the largest barriers to pantry access were not represented at all.
Approach 1.3: Work to reduce wait times among pantry visitors receiving food.
Two in five households reported waiting more than an hour to get food from their local pantry. This is the highest rate observed among the counties for which Community Hunger Mapping projects have been completed to date. One contributing factor to these long waits may be the high prevalence of drive-through pantries in the county. Only three in ten (28%) pantry visitors in Centre County who went to a choice pantry waited longer than an hour, compared to almost half (46%) of pantry visitors who were surveyed at a drive-though pantry. The frequency of pantry opening times may play a role as well, as many pantries in Centre County are open only once or twice a month.
Reducing wait times is a challenging goal for pantries, as wait times result from a complex intersection of several elements as well as each neighbor’s own independent decisionmaking. Contributing factors include pantry-level issues like traffic control, distribution frequency, food availability over the course of the distribution, staff and volunteer capacity, and available waiting facilities (or lack thereof) as well as exogenous ones like weather, visitor travel time and distance, and visitor ability and willingness to wait.
The fact that not all aspects that contribute to wait times are within the control of the pantry increases the challenge of addressing them, but it also creates opportunity for pantries and the charitable food system to experiment with a variety of solutions and leverage collective knowledge to make future improvements.
Approach 1.4: Increase public investments in Centre County charitable food providers to ensure adequacy of service.
Federal funding for charitable food providers has dropped by more than 50% in recent years; simultaneously, direct governmental supports for households in programs like SNAP and the expanded child tax credit have decreased as well. This reduced investment in food assistance programs in combination with significant cost inflation has led to higher food insecurity rates and record numbers of visits to food pantries, despite fewer available resources.
In Centre County, SNAP participation dropped 11.3% between January 2025 and May 2026, while federal food availability to the charitable food system fell by half. While the Commonwealth has increased charitable food funding within the last year, this only helped make up for about a quarter of the loss in federal support. Collective advocacy for additional support from all levels of government will be critical to ensuring that Centre County food pantries have enough resources to serve everyone who comes to their doors in search of help moving forward.
Approach 2: Encouraging Robust Participation in Key Government Nutrition Programs
Federal nutrition programs, including SNAP, WIC, school meal programs, and summer meal programs, all play key roles in supporting food insecure Americans. Centre County has abundant federal summer meal offerings compared to most other counties in which CPFB has completed Community Hunger Mapping projects. While opportunities to increase access remain, most notably in Port Matilda, this is a key strength.
Moreover, Centre County has school breakfast and lunch participation rates that are higher than the statewide averages. One strength of Centre County is the fact that more than three quarters of county schools (75.6%) offer an alternative breakfast model. Given these strengths, the primary opportunity to increase breakfast participation even further is to increase implementation of the “breakfast in the classroom” service model – just one in eight Centre County schools (12%) offers this model, and utilization of this model is associated with the highest participation rates in Centre County and beyond.
In light of Centre County’s successes in child nutrition, the primary opportunities to ensure that more Centre County residents receive all supports for which they are eligible are through outreach for SNAP and WIC, which are respectively the largest and third-largest federal nutrition assistance programs in the nation.
Approach 2.1: Community-Based SNAP Outreach to Increase Participation
Working to increase SNAP participation in Centre County is the most considerable opportunity to meaningfully reduce food insecurity in the county. SNAP outreach and application assistance is essential in the context of the increased administrative burdens and benefit cuts enacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in July 2025, which drove an 11.3% drop in Centre County SNAP participation over the last year. SNAP is the largest and most effective nutrition assistance program in the nation and will remain so despite these cuts. CPFB SNAP outreach in Spring 2026 may have helped stem the tide of falling participation in Centre County, as a small rebound occurred in this time frame; these efforts should continue and grow.
Centre County ranks 56th of the 67 counties of Pennsylvania in family SNAP participation, which is a key measure that excludes college students not living with relatives. Some SNAP outreach methods that can reach Centre County residents include targeted efforts in high-priority areas identified via geographic gap analysis and community location-based outreach at programs where many visitors may be eligible for but not receiving SNAP, independent of their area of residence. Priority areas in Centre County include ZIP Code 16803 in State College as well as ZIP Code 16841 in the Howard area. All pantries, regardless of location, are potentially effective locations for SNAP outreach, as only 46% of pantry visitors participate in SNAP. There are major opportunities to boost uptake among pantry visitors with children, as a minimum of seven in ten (69%) survey respondents with children are likely income-eligible for SNAP, but only half (52%) participate.
Approach 2.2: WIC Outreach in High-Priority Areas
Similar to SNAP, Centre County has one of the lowest WIC participation rates in the state, ranked 55th of 67 counties. There are four ZIP Codes, all of which lie in the northern part of the county, in which child WIC participation gaps are sizable and where targeted program outreach may be effective. These ZIPs include include 16823 in Bellefonte, 16841 in Howard, 16866 in Philipsburg, and 16872 in Rebersburg. As with SNAP, pantry visitor participation in WIC is low; only half (50%) of likely-eligible household reported participation. Because WIC is effectively targeted towards one of the household types most at risk for food insecurity – low income households with small children – working to increase WIC uptake should be a priority for stakeholders across the county.
Approach 3: Addressing Upstream and Intersecting Issues with Food Insecurity
Food insecurity does not occur alone; rather, it is the result of a variety of upstream and intersecting issues. Among food pantry visitors in Centre County, these factors include low incomes, chronic health conditions, transportation, and housing. Food pantry visitor households with children were especially likely to earn low wages as well as face transportation and housing challenges.
Poverty is one of the strongest determinants of very low food security, as more than two in five (44%) pantry visitors with incomes below the federal poverty line reported facing very low food security, compared to a third (33%) for households with incomes between one and one a half times the federal poverty line and one in six (17%) households between one and a half and two times the federal poverty line. Households with children were the most likely to live in poverty; two in five (40%) fell below the federal poverty line, while the same was true of one in five senior-only households (21%) and one in three overall pantry visitors (29%). Accordingly, households with children are among the most vulnerable to very low food security, even among those who work full time.
Households with children were the most likely to mention full-time work as their primary income source. Full-time workers and households who receive disability benefits are the most likely to experience very low food security, with rates of 40% and 43% respectively. This is due in large part to low wages, irregular work, and inadequate disability benefit amounts. Two in five households who reported working full time earned less than $2,000 a month, or $11.50 per hour.
These high rates of very low food security among the full-time employed illustrate the precarity of work for many low-income households. Policy proposals that could increase the security of work include an increase in the minimum wage, which remains at $7.25 per hour in Pennsylvania, and “fair work week” legislation that requires companies to give employees their schedules at least two weeks in advance.
Low wages, precarious work, and fixed incomes are the primary drivers of visits to the charitable food system, not unemployment. Nearly nine in ten pantry visitors (87%) reported their income sources were Social Security or pension (39%), full-time work (20%), disability or SSI (20%) or part-time work (8%).
Chronic health concerns are the most common intersecting issue with food insecurity for Centre County pantry visitors. Three in five (61%) survey respondents reported that they or a member of their household had been diagnosed with at least one diet-related health condition like high blood pressure (45%), diabetes (39%), heart disease (17%), or kidney disease (10%). This is the highest rate found in any county where Community Hunger Mapping has been completed so far. This finding may relate in part to the large share of Centre County pantry visitors who are seniors, but more than half of non-senior households (53%) reported a chronic health concern, which is still a very high prevalence.
The charitable food system should therefore work to source healthy foods and offer choice distribution models that allow visitors to meet their dietary needs and choose the foods that work for them. There may be opportunities to partner with health systems to implement Food as Medicine programming or other collaborative efforts to implement Food as Medicine programming or other cooperative tools to address food insecurity as a social determinant of health. For example, expanding the provision of produce across the charitable food system, including in Centre County, could help support population health aspects of Food as Medicine programs.
Pantry visitors stated that high transportation and housing costs limit their ability to afford food. Three in ten (31%) pantry visitors had to choose between groceries and utilities in the prior year; a quarter (25%) chose between food and their rent or mortgage. Another quarter (25%) chose between transportation costs and food. Households with children were the most likely to be forced to make these tradeoffs.
The high cost of living and ongoing price inflation have made it much harder for many households across Centre County to make ends meet. The charitable food system cannot solve these underlying intersecting challenges alone, but it can promote or provide referrals to utility assistance programs and provide flexibilities for pantry users with transportation difficulties, such as proxy pick-ups or even home delivery where capacity allows.
