Food pantries are seeing a spike in demand, and a concurrent decrease in donations, due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Associated Press reports.
Katie Fitzgerald, chief operating officer for Feeding America, a nationwide association of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries, calls the economic hardship wrought by the coronavirus pandemic a “perfect storm.” Due to widespread layoffs across industries small and large, more people are without money to buy food, and are finding themselves in a position of having to use a food pantry. However, as the restaurant business is all but shuttered, which means that businesses that once supplied pantries with a huge source of their food are now no longer donating.
Similarly, food from farms is being redirected back into grocery stores, whose shelves are sometimes made bare almost as soon as they’re stocked, thanks to food hoarding.
Regardless of the dwindling supply, demand has spiked. Feeding America, for example, reports a 95 percent increase in demand for its food supplies.
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