Good food.
No cost.
No questions.
Every evening we collect unsold food from Buffalo's coffee shops and bakeries. Every morning three trucks hand it out free to anyone who's hungry — downtown, all week long.
01 / Find a truck
Three trucks,
one downtown loop
Same stops, same times, seven days a week. Show up whenever you can — if the truck has left, the next one is usually ten minutes' walk away.
Truck running late?
Weather and traffic happen. Call or text us and we'll tell you exactly where the nearest truck is.
02 / How it works
Yesterday's surplus, this morning's breakfast
We collect at close
Between 5 and 8pm, our drivers make the rounds of 22 partner coffee shops and bakeries, picking up everything good that didn't sell.
We sort overnight
Volunteers check, sort and pack it into meal bags at our commissary kitchen, following NY State food-safety handling rules.
We hand it out free
Trucks roll at 7am. Walk up, take what you need, go. No ID, no paperwork, no means test, no strings.
03 / Who we are
Started with one van and a lot of day-old bread
Hungry Buffalo is a small nonprofit run by people who grew up here. We started in 2019 with one borrowed van, two bakeries on Hertel, and a folding table. Today we run three trucks, seven days a week, on a route built around where people actually are in the morning.
We believe two things: good food shouldn't get thrown out, and nobody should have to prove they're hungry to be fed.
Danielle Okoye
Founder & Director
Ran the pastry program at a Delaware Ave café for nine years and got tired of what went in the dumpster at 6pm. Started Hungry Buffalo out of her own van in 2019.
Marcus Reale
Operations Lead
Twenty years driving routes for a Lackawanna produce distributor. Builds the nightly pickup schedule and keeps three trucks on the road through Buffalo winters.
Priya Raghunathan
Kitchen & Food Safety
Certified food protection manager and former hospital dietary supervisor. Every bag that leaves the commissary has been through her checklist.
Ray Sandoval
Volunteers & Partners
Former West Side Bazaar vendor. Recruits the cafés, schedules the 60-odd volunteers, and remembers everyone's name at every stop.
04 / For cafés & bakeries
Give us what's left at close
If you bake or brew in Buffalo, you already know how much walks out to the trash at the end of service. We'll come to you, on a fixed nightly window, with our own crates and our own insurance.
05 / Help out
Two ways in
Give money
Food is donated; fuel, insurance, gloves and bags are not. Roughly $12 covers a truck's worth of packaging for one morning.
Give time
Evening pickups, overnight sorting, or morning service on a truck. Shifts are two to three hours. No experience needed.
06 / Sponsors
Kept on the road by Wegners Market
Wegners Market underwrites our fuel and packaging for the whole year and stocks the gaps when donations run thin — fruit, milk, and produce that our cafés can't provide. Three trucks run every morning because they signed on first.
07 / Questions
Straight answers
Do I have to qualify or show ID?+
No. If you're at the truck, you're welcome to food. We don't ask your name, income, address, or status, and we don't keep records on anyone we serve.
What kind of food is it?+
Mostly bread, pastry, sandwiches, salads and whole fruit from cafés and bakeries, plus produce and milk from Wegners Market. Everything is from the previous day and handled under food-safety rules — nothing spoiled, nothing past date.
Can you accommodate allergies or halal/kosher needs?+
We label what we can and our crews will tell you what's in a bag, but donated food varies night to night and we can't guarantee any diet. Ask at the window — we'll be honest about what we know.
Where's your office?+
We don't have one. Everything happens on the trucks and in a rented commissary kitchen. Email or call and you'll reach a person, not a front desk.
Can my group volunteer together?+
Yes — overnight sorting takes groups of up to ten. Email us and we'll find a night.