The 2026 Hunger Action Summit “Serving Neighbors, Spreading Change” is scheduled for Thursday, October 29 from 9:00am to 3:00pm at the Montgomery County Community College Blue Bell campus (College Hall, Rooms 144/148/151).

The event will bring together food pantry leaders and community partners to discuss rising demand for emergency food, share innovative pantry practices and find ways to better serve neighbors facing hunger. The event comes as a new MAHN survey finds that 68% of responding food pantries are seeing more first-time guests than a year ago.

The MontCo Anti-Hunger Network and its network of over 70 food pantries and free meal providers. Speakers will include Montgomery County Commissioner Jamila Winder, Highmark Blue Shield’s Ken Lawrence and other community leaders.

An estimated 83,740 Montgomery County residents are food insecure, including more than 24,000 children. Recent changes to SNAP are threatening to put even more pressure on local pantries. MAHN has also helped distribute more than 1 million pounds of food to local pantries through September 2026, nearly matching its entire 2025 total in just nine months.