Food programs feeling the pinch

Local food pantries are facing a funding hurdle: The rising cost of food is hitting suppliers hard at the same time as more people need their services.

Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana and Midwest Food Bank Indiana are two Indianapolis-based food banks serving the Wayne County area. Food banks help supply local food pantries, which hand it out.

Gleaners of Indiana is part of a national network of food banks and works in 21 Indiana counties, and provides some or all of the food for 13 Wayne County food pantries and two pantries based in local schools. Gleaners gets some donations from food processors and distributors, and some from a government program. They also buy food at bulk prices. Gleaners stores it in large warehouses and brings it by truck to Richmond.

Gleaners passes the donated food along to pantries but charges for purchased foods. Chief executive officer Fred Glass said that with donations and work done by volunteers, the food bank provides food for $1 that would cost about $10 at a store.

With a warehouse in Indianapolis, Midwest Food Bank operates in 60 Indiana counties. It serves seven other states and some foreign countries, collecting donated food and distributing at no cost to food programs including pantries, soup kitchens and emergency relief.

Food prices experienced by individual shoppers are affecting food banks and the programs they serve. From 2022 to 2023 food prices increased 5%, two times the 20-year average according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Reduced support from government programs aggravates the problem for food programs, Glass said.

“The government support (for meat and canned goods) has gone way down,” since the pandemic ended. “We now buy more than half of the food we distribute,” Glass said. “To give you some idea, the year before the pandemic (2019), Gleaners spent about $2 million to purchase food. This year, we will spend more than $7.7 million.”

One food pantry feeling the squeeze is Gateway Hunger Relief Center. It’s open from 10 a.m. to noon Tuesdays and Fridays at 715 Sheridan St., Richmond. 

In February, Gateway provided food to 2,252 people, said Linda White, its director. “We’re only supposed to be here to help them get over the hump,” she said of her agency’s clients. 

While Gateway doesn’t turn anyone away, they do limit people to one visit every 30 days, requesting simple identification so they can keep track of who has been helped. 

She said Gleaners is “fantastic” to work with but the increasing food costs have meant Gateway gets no meat from Gleaners and there are rarely surpluses of other products. 

Along with bringing food for local pantries, Gleaners sends a box truck loaded with food to Richmond for a monthly food distribution. It parks behind First Christian Church, 100 S. 10th St. Cars and pickups queue up for about four blocks around the adjacent 10th Street Park and pass through lines of volunteers who load food into the vehicles from 9:30-11 a.m. on the fourth Monday. Richmond Rotary Club partners with Gleaners by organizing the volunteer crew. In the three years that she has helped out, that distribution has grown from about 150 households to between 350 to 400 in a typical month, said Teri Grossman, volunteer coordinator.

Through a partnership with the Jefferson Township trustee, the Gleaners mobile pantry visits Hagerstown monthly from March to November, distributing food from 10 a.m. to noon on the fourth Thursday at the Hagerstown First United Methodist Church parking lot. It serves about 200 households a month.

Glass said food insecurity is on the rise. Food insecurity means not knowing where your next meal is coming from. Four factors are at play, and mostly out of individual control, he said: rising cost of rent, rising costs of groceries, wages that are not keeping up with inflation and declining government support.

“The people we serve are mostly working people,” Glass said. “In Indiana, 30% of people have jobs that pay less than $18 an hour, which is now considered a living wage, and 43% have jobs requiring 21 or less hours of work a week. Wages are going up but they are not keeping up with inflation.”

At the same time, government support for low-income working people is declining, with reductions to the Earned Income Tax Credit, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps), and universal free school lunch. The post-COVID recertification of Medicaid recipients has removed 18.2 million people from that health program, according to KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation), which keeps that data.

“People who never thought they would need help now find themselves coming to food pantries,” he said.

In Wayne County, 14.6% of residents – roughly 9,690 people – are food insecure, including 3,890 children, according to Gleaners.

“Hunger is not a ‘them’ problem, it’s an ‘us’ problem. It affects everyone. A 1% increase in food insecurity equates to a 12% increase in crime, it affects absenteeism and something that we call ‘presenteeism,’ they’re there (at work or school) but not productive. It’s a universal problem.”

White, at the Gateway Hunger Relief Center, said the generosity of the people who come to Gateway helps inspire her. For instance, when Gateway has food left over after distribution, it is set out in front of the center and people can take what they need. Often, people will pick up bulk quantities such as 50-pound bags of potatoes so they can share with neighbors, she said.

While Gleaners does receive grants from charitable groups and foundations and some government funds, about 60% of its financial support comes from private donations, Glass said. A $31 million five-year community campaign is underway. Karen Pipes of Centerville is co-chair. 

Gail Lowry, chief philanthropy officer at Gleaners, wrote, “Our Community Campaign’s greatest need now is raising funds for our Annual Fund — especially to secure $7.7 million this year alone for the acquisition of healthy, meal-making food.”

People wishing to donate can find a link on the Gleaners of Indiana website, www.gleaners.org/give-funds/.