Her Family Once Relied on Food Pantries. Now, She Maintains ‘Shame-Free’ Pantries for Families in Need

“I grew up going to a food pantry weekly, and so I really saw firsthand the lack of dignity or quality of items that were provided to feed my family growing up,” says Alyssa Curtis.

July 8, 2026, 11:35 AM PDT / Source: TODAY

Joseph Lamour

Alyssa Curtis with two new shame-free pantries ready to install, a pantry in the wild.

Alyssa Curtis with her kids, Tinsley and Georgia, in front of her "shame-free" pantry.

Alyssa Curtis' daughter Georgia Mae restocks a pantry.

On any given day, the trunk of Alyssa Curtis’ car is filled with an assortment of household items as she drives to spots around the area from her home in Lowell, Michigan.

“I’m usually stocking my pantry every day. I’ll throw stuff out there, or every other day, I’ll do a big restock,” she tells TODAY.com.

Curtis is the founder of the Shame Free Collective, a nonprofit that operates pantries stocked with food, hygiene and baby care items for people to take without payment or judgment.Alyssa Curtis with her kids, Tinsley and Georgia, in front of her “shame-free” pantry.Courtesy Alyssa Curtis

“I usually try to get to most of (the pantries) once a week to drop off a huge load,” she explains. “Each pantry has a host who helps keep it running. If we have extra food or hygiene items, I restock the pantries where the need is greatest or where a host has asked for a little extra support.”

Curtis is the sole — and currently unpaid — employee of the Shame Free Collective. In addition to raising four daughters and one son with her husband, she handles her own admin, marketing, mail and everything else at the office, posting frequently on social media about the journey.

“Neighbors helping neighbors,” she says in a June 24 video. “No one should go home to empty cupboards.”

Viewers’ donations range from packs of Midol, dog food and cereal to vegetable oil, coffee creamer, diapers, baby cream, laundry soap, rice and microwaveable mac-and-cheese cups.

“Microwave-ready meals in a cup are awesome for people who live without homes or in their cars because they can just take them right to a gas station,” Curtis says. “Things like beef jerky and nuts are protein and help fill the belly. Right now, we are having a lot of demand for water and Gatorade and feminine hygiene essentials.”

Curtis says the idea for Shame Free Collective was born out of the previous content she was posting, which was quite different a year ago.

“I was monetized for cooking content, and it didn’t sit right with my spirit when there was so much struggle all around us,” she says. It all started with a video of her setting up the first pantry.A “shame-free” pantry in Michigan.

“So, I started filming my pantry restocks, and I just got so many messages of, ‘How can I start this?’ and ‘How did you get started?’”

Curtis says, after months of those messages, she and her carpenter husband decided to start building pantries in Michigan.

Her collective, which became an approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit in May, has grown from one pantry at the start of last fall to 20 pantries as of this month. And she’s currently setting up the 21st.

“Everyone is just so strapped by capitalism that there are more and more people just struggling to keep their kids fed,” she says. “A lot of times, there are single moms who are working a job or two jobs, working incredibly hard, and it’s not a lack of work ethic or having a job, struggling to keep a roof over their head.”

Curtis’ commitment to this cause comes from a deeply personal place.

“I grew up going to a food pantry weekly, and so I really saw firsthand the lack of dignity or quality of items that were provided to feed my family growing up,” Curtis says.

In the last year, millions of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries lost food assistance due to the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” which shifted the financial burden to local governments.

Curtis says when SNAP benefits were cut, she started seeing people on Facebook looking for food for their families. Research shows that parents often go without food to feed their children in times of hardship.Alyssa Curtis’ daughter Georgia Mae restocks a pantry.

“I’ve heard of a lot of moms skipping dinner so that their kids can have food in their bellies, and that really, really devastates me,” she says.

“That’s what really moved my spirit to do something about creating access. Everybody should have food with dignity.”