Excerpts from the report: Food pantries and emergency kitchens play an important role in the nutrition safety net for America’s low-income and needy populations. These organizations are part of the Emergency Food Assistance System (EFAS), a network run largely by private organizations with some Federal Government support. To better understand the EFAS and its interactions with Federal food assistance programs, the Economic Research Service (ERS) contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) to conduct a national study of food pantries and emergency kitchens. One of the study’s reports and a companion executive summary present findings from the 2001 EFAS Client Survey. The survey sampled clients who received emergency food assistance from selected food pantries and emergency kitchens that participated in the 2000 EFAS Provider Survey.