Food pantries see increased need as subsidies reduced
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[May 08, 2023]
By Zeta Cross | The Center Square contributor
(The Center Square) – SNAP benefit cuts are impacting local food
pantries in Illinois.
Cuts in benefits in March for people who get food subsidies are leaving
many looking at food pantries for help. Dan Philips, of Loaves and Fish
Food Pantry, said demand is higher after COVID-era food subsidy
enhancements were canceled.
“We thought ‘oh boy, this will be tough,’” Philips said. “But we have
not been overwhelmed. We are coping.”
Philips credits COVID for making Peoria food pantries better at what
they do. With the help of the University of Illinois Extension office,
they worked with fellow food pantries to develop a local food pantry
network.
“We work together and feed information into one common source. We share
resources and communicate with each other on best practices,” Philips
said.
The demand for food is still there and it is not getting smaller, he
said. An estimated 40,000 people in Greater Peoria struggle to find
enough to eat every week.
“COVID allowed us to fine tune what we were doing,” Philips said.
Loaves and Fish Food Pantry is a ministry of the First United Methodist
Church, which is located in downtown Peoria next to the public library.
Every Saturday they serve a hot meal to 300 people. In addition to a hot
meal, the church gives the people a bag of groceries to take home.
“It’s not enough to eat for a week. We give them supplemental food,”
Philips said.
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It takes 40 volunteers every Saturday to put on the Saturday meal. In 28
years, the church has never missed a Saturday, even when Christmas fell
on a Saturday or when there was 3 feet of snow on the ground.
All kinds of people show up on Saturdays for the hot meals. Some are
homeless. Some live in shelters. Most have some kind of paid employment
or at least one family member who is working.
“We see a lot of single moms. We have a lot of families. Most times
somebody in the family is working but they can’t stretch the paycheck to
feed everybody all week,” Philips said. “They wind up short at the end
of the month.”
One time, Philips met a man in the lunch line who had been a part time
professor at the local community college.
"Things happen or people get themselves in trouble. We don't want anyone
to go hungry," Philips said.
Inflation has had a big impact on food pantries and on the families they
serve, Philips said. Donations from supermarkets, big suppliers and
other partners have dropped way off.
Loaves and Fish works closely with the Midwest Food Bank, the regional
food bank supplier.
“In the last couple of months, they have seen their corporate donations,
the food they bring in in semi-loads, drop pretty drastically,” Philips
said. “Looking ahead, those shortages mean we have to develop new
relationships and keep working harder to make up for those deficits.”
The average person on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits
receives them for a few months, Philips said. When someone loses a job
or when somebody gets ill and can’t work, food pantries are there for
them until they can get back on their feet.
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