The Dysphagia Food Bank

What is the Dysphagia Food Bank?

The mission of The Dysphagia Outreach Project’s Dysphagia Food Bank is to provide tangible assistance to low income individuals with dysphagia across the lifespan by providing access to thickeners, pre-modified foods, therapy tools, oral care supplies, and adaptive equipment. Insurance coverage for the above-mentioned supplies is inconsistent, and more often than not, insurance companies refuse to pay for dysphagia supplies, resulting in a significant financial burden for many individuals with dysphagia.

Our mission at The Dysphagia Outreach Project is twofold. Part one is to help provide assistance for those individuals for whom accessibility of dysphagia supplies is limited due to financial hardship. The other part of our mission is to provide education and support to the dysphagia community at large about when it is appropriate to recommend and utilize these same supplies.

What Should I Know Before I Donate?

• At this time, The Dysphagia Outreach Project is only able to accept new, unopened, and unexpired food and oral care products.

• Reusable items such as bottles, spoons, cups, and other multi-use products must be cleaned and sterilized (per manufacturer guidelines) prior to shipping to us.

• Therapy devices such as EMST150 and The Breather can only be accepted for donation if they are in their original, unopened packaging.

• Open, expired, damaged, or dirty items will be discarded.

• At this time, we are NOT accepting donations of powdered cornstarch-based thickeners. Acceptance of cornstarch-based thickeners will be on a case-by-case basis only.

  • Despite being a popular option for thickening culinary items, cornstarch-based thickening agents are not suitable options for people with dysphagia. Active components in cornstarch-based thickener react differently to foods/liquids with varying temperatures, high pH levels, or even when mixed with saliva, causing significant instability and variability in consistency. On average, people with dysphagia have longer meal times which increases the amount of liquid instability. All of these factors lead to a higher chance of aspiration and increased injury to the lungs compared to xanthan gum thickeners. 

  • Utilizing thickening agents (such as xanthan gum) that do not break down rapidly or impact their hydration is key to effectively managing a safe swallow.

• We ask that you pay for shipping of products to us if possible in order to allow our financial donations to go farther and help more recipients. If you have a large quantity of items to donate or need financial assistance to help with getting us your donation, please email team@dysphagiaoutreach.org.

What Can I Donate?

The following list (though not exhaustive) provides some examples of the types of items we are currently accepting:

Where Do I Send Donations?