Pandemic-era food aid from the federal government ended earlier this year, and inflation has also taken its toll. Those are just two reasons why visits to local food pantries are way up. WMRA’s Ayse Pirge reports.
Les Sinclair is the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank’s communications and PR manager. He says that this year, they’ve seen a 30 to 50% increase in guest visits, the people who rely on food pantries and food bank programs.
LES SINCLAIR: Last fiscal year, we had … guest visits across the region of 127,500 people, every single month, on average. And in the last six months, what we've seen is 153,000 guest visits on average, every single month. And so, we don't have our final fiscal year numbers to come out. But just that growth alone, an extra 30,000 people, on average, per month, guest visits, is pretty significant.
Households with food insecurity can face difficulty obtaining nutritionally adequate foods and accessing food in socially acceptable ways, according to the U-S Department of Agriculture, or USDA. In other words, they may have to resort to scavenging or rely on emergency food supplies.
Feeding America says that the effects of food insecurity on individuals can also include health problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Food banks, such as the BRAFB, operate as non-profits that store and distribute food to places including local food pantries. They receive food donations from a range of sources including individual offerings, grocery stores, and restaurants, as well as large companies and the USDA.
The BRAFB serves a large portion of Virginia, including much of the Shenandoah Valley, as well as cities from Charlottesville, to Lexington, to Winchester. Among local counties, Bath, Page and Shenandoah counties have the highest rates of food insecurity. That’s according to 2022 data from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap.
And compounding the problem, people experiencing food insecurity may also not be eligible for SNAP, short for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Sinclair says that SNAP helps provide food for nine people for every one person that a food bank helps. But while the program benefits many people, some may not know they’re eligible for the program. SNAP also presents some hurdles to receiving aid, including having to fill out a long application form. That’s why the BRAFB has a SNAP benefit coordinator to help people overcome those hurdles, and train partner pantries so that they can help more people get SNAP.
Sinclair said grocery inflation isn’t just a challenge for individuals and families on a tight budget. It’s also straining the food bank’s bottom line.
SINCLAIR: What is our strategy really is to do what we always do, and that is make sure that we have enough food… and everyone should have enough food. And that's pretty much it. Our strategy is to make sure that we are when our donations are down or the USDA doesn't provide as much food as they previously did, we buy more food. And that is having an impact on us as well. Because we are paying more, even though we operate at a scale, we, we are still paying more for our food as well. I'll give you a, for example, before the pandemic, we spent about $1.8 million on food…. This past year, we'll spend over $5 million on food. … to replace the food that isn't being donated.
He says another trend that’s actually good for major grocery stores and chains presents an additional challenge for food banks. Retailers are increasing their efficiency, which means the food bank has been receiving less from them.
SINCLAIR: ...They're very efficient and getting better at making sure that they don't have waste. We would normally get that leftover or overruns and those sorts of things. But they're so efficient that that number is going down. So again, when that number goes down, and the demand goes up, we have to buy more food.
And then… there’s politics.
SINCLAIR: ...Some folks who are in the legislative world want to cut some of these programs. But what we are seeing … from the food bank’s perspective is that we are seeing just this growth in the number of people who are food insecure and the demand, the number of people who are coming to our food pantries, is growing exponentially. And a cut in this means that we have to buy more food and that food costs more now. And those challenges just are one thing on top of the other.
Despite all these challenges, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank and other non-profit providers continue to do their best to alleviate food insecurity.
