Ohio food banks partnering with delivery companies

Food banks and pantries nationwide are increasingly relying on donated services from delivery companies like DoorDash and Amazon to get food to people who need it.

• Columbus is one of 18 cities set to receive support from DoorDash to bolster the company's Project DASH program, it recently announced.

What's happening: DoorDash is providing $1 million in "community credits" gift cards for nonprofits, plus proprietary data on local food-access needs and funds for delivery of charitable food.

Why it matters: The program aims to eliminate barriers to food access, including a lack of transportation.

• Almost 1.4 million Ohioans experience hunger, per a Feeding America report — with 1 in 6 children and 1 in 9 Ohioans overall affected.

The big picture: The news came as the White House convened its first Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in more than 50 years last week, with the goal of ending U.S. food insecurity in eight years, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill reports.

By the numbers: Prior to the Columbus partnership, Project DASH had already completed more than 54,000 deliveries in Ohio as of June 2022.

• It's grown from 6,000 deliveries in 14 states and D.C. in 2018 to more than 1.5 million deliveries in all but one state this year.

Yes, and: The Mid-Ohio Food Collective, Central Ohio's food bank, partnered with Amazon's Community Delivery program last year.

• Started in 2018, the program is on schedule to deliver 315,000 boxes of food nationwide this year.

What they're saying: "Combating food insecurity requires us all to work together," Mayor Andrew Ginther tweeted.

What's next: In the coming weeks, the city will work with DoorDash to determine local priorities and get resources in residents' hands, a spokesperson tells Axios.

Meanwhile, advocates at the national level are exploring whether government funding could sustain such services as popularity booms.