Food banks struggle to keep up
Southwest Florida food pantries being squeezed by higher demand along with rising gas, retail prices
Liz Freeman
Naples Daily News USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA
Needy families and food banks are both struggling against rising prices and supply chain shortages that are making it harder to put food on the table.
Officials who operate food pantries in Southwest Florida are hoping the generosity of the community with non-perishable food donations and financial support will help.
People are trying to get back on an even keel from last year and now see rising prices everywhere, said Richard LeBer, president and chief executive officer of the Harry Chapin Food Bank.
“It’s not just food prices, it is all prices,” he said. “It is adding to the stresses of an already stressful situation.”
Harry Chapin is the largest
“I am afraid we are going to have to cut services. I don’t know what we will do at the first of the year.”
Steve Popper
President and chief executive officer of Meals of Hope hunger-relief nonprofit serving Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties. It provides food supplies to 150 organizations that run pantries, and it operates direct food distribution locations for the needy.
The COVID-19 pandemic, rising gas prices and the supply chain shortages are straining budgets for households and charities alike, and that means there’s less food to distribute even while there’s been little slowdown in the number of families needing help, charity officials say.
On top of that, federal pandemic relief for local governments, of which a share was given to food charities, is winding down or gone, officials say.
“I am afraid we are going to have to cut services,” said Steve Popper, president and chief executive officer of Meals of Hope, a food packing agency and food pantry operator in Southwest Florida. “I don’t know what we will do at the first of the year.”
No slowdown of food needs
Food pantries earlier this year saw a dip in the number of families needing food support compared to 2020 when the pandemic hit.
But the numbers are now creeping up, officials say.
At its 13 food pantries in Collier and Lee, Meals of Hope has been seeing 3,000 families a week. A year ago in December, 4,000 families a week got food from the organization, Popper said.
Now with gas and retail food prices climbing due to supply chain issues, more families are seeking help with food.
“The numbers are increasing,” he said.
The pantries operate at churches, schools and other locations where CO-VID 19 social distancing policies remain in place. Clients stay in their car and show their identification card, and volunteers put the food bag in their trunk.
Clients are working families where often one spouse works 40 hours a week for $15 an hour and the other spouse works part time at around $15 an hour, Popper said, adding that doesn’t go far in Southwest Florida.
According to rentdata.org., a rental website, Florida has the 18th highest rental rate out of 56 states and territories.
The fair market rent for a three-bedroom place in Collier County is $1,792 and $1,559 in Lee County, according to the website.
People work in Collier but live in Lee County where rent is lower, but now their commuting budget has gone up because of high gas prices, Popper said.
“When you look at the lines (at the pantries), they are the (certified nursing assistants) who work in long-term care facilities and the service industry,” Popper said. “We serve very few homeless.”
LeBer, at Harry Chapin, said the pandemic meant a lot of job losses or reduced work hours, or one parent had to stay home when schools and child care centers were closed.
At its direct distribution sites where families can get about 30 pounds of food a week, 5,000 to 6,000 families are being helped now, he said.
“(Our volunteers) see a lot of the same faces,” LeBer said.
Roughly 49% of its client base are families, 19% are seniors and 32% are children, according to Harry Chapin’s website.
Eighty percent or families served said they choose between food or paying utilities, while 73% said they must decide between food and transportation expenses.
Food comes in, right back out
Food banks in the region in 2020 distributed record amounts of food to families, and 2021 will be similar, officials say.
Harry Chapin currently distributes around 700,000 pounds of food a week to organizations in the five-county region, but that’s far below 1.2 million pounds a week in 2020 when the pandemic first hit, LeBer said.
In 2019, Harry Chapin was distributing 550,000 pounds of food a week, so the current need is well above pre-pandemic levels, LeBer said.
Meals of Hope distributed 6 million pounds of food in 2020, which is the equivalent to 240 tractor trailers of food, Popper said.
“I think in 2019 we did 1.8 million pounds of food, so it tripled,” Popper said. “Through October of 2021 we have done close to 3.5 million pounds, but one of the problems is we can’t get food. We are not giving out turkeys this year for the first time.”
Meals of Hope is not seeing food donations from food distributors as it has in the past because of supply chain shortages and companies are scaling back.
That means buying more food at higher costs. And trucking expenses have gone way up. Last year, Popper’s cost for a truck delivery ran $2,800 to $3,200.
“Now it costs $7,200 — just the shipping and not the cost of the food,” Popper said. “A lot of companies that may have given to food banks are not doing it any more.”
In Collier County alone this year,
Bob Stewart places sweet potatoes in the back of a car at the Meals of Hope drive-thru on Monday at Lely Presbyterian Church in Naples. CAITLYN JORDAN/NAPLES DAILY NEWS