Volunteers, community & personal
Route planner for food banks and pantries
Homebound clients, volunteers driving their own cars, and a client list in a spreadsheet. Turn delivery day into short routes a volunteer can finish in a morning, printed or on a phone.
Free plan, no credit card. Works on your phone and computer.
- PantryStart
- Maria G.Senior box + produce, knock loudly1.0 mi
- Robert T.Mobile home park, space 1121.4 mi
- Sunrise senior apartments4 clients, sign in at the office2.2 mi
- Dolores R.Diabetic-friendly box, side gate1.4 mi
- James W.Uses a wheelchair, bring the box inside1.5 mi
- + 3 more stops
EZRoutePlanner for food banks & pantries
A food bank route planner turns a home delivery client list into short, optimized routes for volunteer drivers. In EZRoutePlanner you import the list, lasso a handful of nearby homes for each volunteer, and press Optimize Route from the pantry. Volunteers get a link that opens with no app or login, or a printed sheet. Several routes at once need a paid plan, from $20 a month.
- Typical route
- 8–15 homes per volunteer, 2–3 hours
- Drivers
- Volunteers in their own cars, on their own phones
- Hand-off
- A link, a QR code or a printed PDF sheet
- Labels
- First name and last initial, not full names
An example day
Tuesday home delivery route
This example is 8 stops on real roads in Mesa, Arizona. In the order the list had them, the round trip is 17 mi and 52 min of driving. Optimized, it's 11 mi and 37 min: 6.1 mi and 14 min less, 36% shorter.
Volunteer routes are short on purpose: a morning's drive, a dozen homes, back to the pantry. The work is splitting the list into small routes a volunteer will actually finish, then letting the optimizer order each one.
Stops are example points on real streets, not real customers. Distances and times are driving figures for each order.
- PantryStart
- Maria G.Senior box + produce, knock loudly1.0 mi
- Robert T.Mobile home park, space 1121.4 mi
- Sunrise senior apartments4 clients, sign in at the office2.2 mi
- Dolores R.Diabetic-friendly box, side gate1.4 mi
- James W.Uses a wheelchair, bring the box inside1.5 mi
- Linh P.Two boxes, family of five1.1 mi
- Harold B.Call from the curb, hard of hearing0.5 mi
- Esperanza F.Spanish speaker, porch1.0 mi
Where the day goes
What makes routing hard for food banks and pantries
Volunteers give a morning, not a shift
Most volunteer drivers have two or three hours. A route that runs long gets cut short, and a homebound client waits another week.
Every volunteer knows a different part of town
Some drive only near home, some avoid the freeway, and plenty have never found a numbered space in a mobile home park. Matching routes to people is the coordinator's real job.
Paper for some, phones for others
Longtime volunteers want a printed sheet; newer ones want a text. Retyping one list into two formats every week leaves no time for the phone calls.
Start from your list
Bring the spreadsheet you already keep.
Phone numbers, diets and door notes stay in your client records. EZRoutePlanner keeps the address and one label column, so make that column first name and last initial: the volunteer knows who to ask for, and the shared link never carries a full name.
- 1
Import the client list
Bring in the delivery list from your spreadsheet or client database export. Label each stop with first name and last initial, so the route shows who to ask for without a full name.
- 2
Lasso one route per volunteer
Draw around 8–15 nearby homes on the map to make each volunteer's route. Each one gets its own color, so you can see what's still unassigned.
- 3
Optimize from the pantry
Set the pantry as the base, turn on Round Trip for drivers who bring crates back, and press Optimize Route.
- 4
Hand out sheets or links
Print the PDF route sheet for volunteers who like paper, with turn-by-turn directions if they want them. Text the link to everyone else.
| Client ID | First name + initial | Address | City | ZIP | Box |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1043 | Maria G. | 1150 W Southern Ave | Mesa | 85210 | Senior + produce |
| 1058 | Robert T. | 2050 S Dobson Rd, Space 112 | Mesa | 85202 | Senior |
| 1061 | Dolores R. | 742 E University Dr | Mesa | 85203 | Diabetic-friendly |
| 1077 | Linh P. | 3311 E Broadway Rd | Mesa | 85204 | Family x2 |
| 1084 | Harold B. | 5615 E Main St | Mesa | 85205 | Senior |
An example sheet. Columns can be named anything and in any order; street, city and ZIP can be one column or several. Pick one column, like the customer name, as each stop's label.
From the route
Routing tips for food banks and pantries
Fit each route to one morning
Aim for what a volunteer can finish in two or three hours, carrying boxes and chatting at the door included. Twelve homes close together beat eight spread across the valley.
Check pins in mobile home parks and senior complexes
Space numbers and building letters often geocode to the park's front gate. Check those pins on the review map and drag them to the right lane, so a volunteer isn't walking rows looking for space 112.
Give regulars the same route each week
Clients trust a familiar face, and volunteers learn the gates and the dogs. Save each regular's route under their name and reuse it, editing only for new or departed clients.
Reprint when the list changes
Shared links update when you edit a route; printed sheets don't. When a client moves or stops service, reprint that route, and revoke the link for a volunteer who's stopped driving.
Frozen boxes first in a Mesa summer
In a car parked in the Arizona sun, frozen and dairy items don't last long. Drag clients with frozen boxes toward the start of the route, or give them their own short route.
Keep the miles for reimbursement and grants
Volunteers driving their own cars may claim mileage, and funders ask for miles driven. Each route shows its total distance; export it to Excel for the record. See mileage for multiple stops.
Honest fit
What it handles, and what it doesn't
EZRoutePlanner is built for putting a day of stops in the right order and getting them to whoever drives. Here's where that fits food banks and pantries, and where you'd want something else alongside it.
Good fit
- Weekly home delivery to homebound and senior clients
- Volunteer drivers using their own cars and phones
- Short routes of 8–15 homes, one per volunteer (paid plans)
- Printed route sheets for volunteers who prefer paper
- Mileage records for reimbursement and grant reports
Not built for
- Doesn't divide clients between volunteers; you lasso each route
- No client intake, eligibility or case records
- No delivery confirmations; volunteers report back to you
- No volunteer scheduling or shift sign-ups
- Free has unlimited routes, kept one at a time; several volunteers at once need a paid plan
Last reviewed October 21, 2026.
Food banks & pantries: questions
How do food banks plan home delivery routes?
Most keep a list of homebound clients, divide it into short routes by area, and give each route to a volunteer driver along with the boxes. In EZRoutePlanner you import the list, lasso each route on the map, optimize each from the pantry, and print or text them. The multiple drivers guide shows the splitting step.
Is there a free route planner for food pantries?
EZRoutePlanner's free plan works for a small pantry: 30 saved addresses and unlimited routes of up to 30 stops, kept one at a time. Several volunteer routes at once need a paid plan, from $20 a month, 25% less billed every 6 months. Our route planning template is free and needs no account at all.
Do volunteers need to download an app or make an account?
No. Each route's link opens in any phone browser, with the stops in order and a Navigate button for Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze. Volunteers who don't use smartphones can take the printed sheet.
How many homes should one volunteer route have?
Commonly 8–15, set by time rather than count: a route should fit in two or three hours with time at each door. Dense apartment stops can go higher; spread-out suburban routes lower.
How do we protect client privacy on routes?
Label stops with first name and last initial or a client number, keep health and diet details in your own records, and revoke a route's link when a volunteer stops driving. Printed sheets show only the label and the address.
Can it plan grocery rescue pickups too?
Yes. Grocery stores, bakeries and restaurants donating food are stops like any others. Make a pickup route for the morning truck from the pantry, optimize it, and keep it separate from the home delivery routes.
More for your business
- IndustryRoute planner for nonprofits and volunteer programsPlan volunteer delivery routes for meal programs, church outreach and holiday hampers: short routes per volunteer, shared as links with no app.
- IndustryRoute planner for meal prep and bakery businessesPlan weekly meal prep and bakery delivery routes from your order export: every porch in the shortest loop from your kitchen, so cold bags ride less.
- IndustryRoute planner for farms and CSAsPlan CSA share-day and farm home delivery routes: import members, fix rural pins that land wrong, and put pickup sites and porches in the shortest loop.
- GuideHow to plan routes for multiple driversPlan routes for multiple drivers: split the stops by area, ZIP or day, balance each driver's load, optimize every route and send each driver a link.
- GuideHow to calculate mileage for a trip with multiple stopsCalculate mileage for a trip with multiple stops: the total in Google Maps (up to 10 places), every leg from a route planner, and why the order matters.
- Free toolRoute planning spreadsheet templateA free CSV and Excel template with the columns route planners read, plus a filled-in example.
Plan tomorrow's home delivery route tonight.
Import your customer list, optimize the order with one click, and open it on your phone in the morning. Free to start, no credit card.
Free plan. No credit card. Works in any browser.