By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
Iowa’s six regional food banks have received enough donations this month to trigger the $1 million in state funding Governor Reynolds pledged to match that increase in contributions.
The state’s largest food bank serves 55 counties and will get about $475,000 from the state. Food Bank of Iowa spokeswoman Annette Hacker said to put that in perspective, the organization spent well over half a million dollars just this week buying food. “The Food Bank of Iowa has been responding to record and rising need for three and a half years,” Hacker said. “…The surge we’ve seen of truly historic proportions has only been in the last 14 days. It frankly feels like a lifetime.”
Hacker said the managers of some of the food pantries served by the Des Moines-based Food Bank of Iowa estimate the number of people coming through their doors has doubled and in some cases tripled so far this month. “The surge in need truly is unprecedented and that’s not a word we use lightly. We’ve never seen anything like it,” Hacker said.
State officials announced yesterday that by sometime today all 130,000 Iowa households that are signed up for SNAP benefits should have the money delivered to their electronic benefit cards. “We’re very grateful the government’s reopened and we’re thankful that Iowans who rely on SNAP will have those benefits they can use at the grocery store, but the effects of this are going to linger for a while,” Hacker said.
Chris Ackman, a spokesman for the HACAP Food Reservoir in Hiawatha that serves nine eastern Iowa counties, agreed. “I’m sure it will be a busy weekend at the grocery stores, but the need for food is still going to be very present,” Ackman said.
In just the past six weeks, the HACAP Food Reservoir spent nearly a third of their yearly food purchasing budget, according to Ackman. “That just shows you how big of a need there was when the shutdown began, how much we’ve purchased in food to meet the need,” Ackman said, “and then all of this, timing wise, is all right before the Thanksgiving holidays which is usually one of our biggest times for getting even more food out.”
Hacker of the Food Bank of Iowa said it’s clear challenging times are ahead, “but what we also know is the community has risen to the occasion once again and they’ve helped us to keep up, to try to fill this gap, to try to meet this demand, so whatever’s ahead we’ll meet it head on and we’ll meet it together.”
Valerie Petersen, associate director of the Food Bank of Siouxland in northwest Iowa, said part of the spike in food demand is coming from older Iowans. “They’ve planned for retirement,” Petersen said. “They’ve planned for their future, and yet, with the rising cost of things, they’re not able to make ends meet.”
When SNAP benefits weren’t delivered earlier this month, the Food Bank of Siouxland in northwest Iowa saw local food pantry visits almost double, but at the same time Petersen said she saw more volunteers come in to help, companies hosted more food drives, and people increased their donations. “It has been a very good reminder that we take care of each other in our community,” she said, “and hopefully the communities around Iowa are seeing that as well.”
The other three food banks that distribute food in Iowa are the River Bend Food Bank in Davenport, Northeast Iowa Food Bank in Waterloo and Food Bank for the Heartland in Omaha.
