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RI Food Bank struggles keeping up with demand – Rhode Island Current
By: Christopher Shea
(Note: This article is shared through agreement with The Rhode Island Current)
As food insecurity continues to surge across the state, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank is sounding the alarm that more of its shelves are empty at its Providence distribution center.
Between July 2023 and June 2024, the food bank distributed 18.3 million pounds of food to feed a monthly average of 82,600 people — an increase of more than 2 million pounds over the same one-year period ending in June 2023.
Food is accessed through a statewide network of 147 local and regional food pantries, including the three operated by the East Bay Community Action Program where leaders said it’s not uncommon to see someone who once donated food come in for services.
Rhode Island Community Food Bank CEO Andrew Schiff attributes the increase in food pantry demand to two major factors: high living costs and the end of pandemic-era food programs and benefits.
“Families on low incomes or fixed incomes just have not been able to keep up with all the additional expenses in their lives,” Schiff said in an interview Thursday. “Eventually we are hoping that inflation and food prices will moderate, but we’re going to need other long-term fixes.”
Chief among those solutions: more affordable homes.
A report published in June by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that full-time workers need to earn a wage of $33.20 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent in Rhode Island. With such high housing costs, East Bay Community Action Program CEO Rilwan Feyistan said families have to make the choice between paying for food or shelter.
“Housing always eats first,” Feyistan said.
Schiff is also calling on state lawmakers to make school breakfast and lunch free for all students — similar to what Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont have done. School meals were briefly free during the pandemic thanks to federal emergency funding and waivers. But that ended in June 2022, which made the state return to a tiered system that charges parents based on their income level.
Progressives in the General Assembly sought to do so for the fiscal year 2025 budget, but lawmakers instead adopted Gov. Dan McKee’s $800,000 subsidy toward free breakfast and lunch for about 6,500 public school students already eligible for reduced-priced meals.
“It will be an issue that will be under consideration in the next legislative session and I look forward to discussing it in detail with the members of the House Democratic Caucus,” House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said in a statement. “There have been pros and cons raised in the past few years and we need to look at through the prism of the entire state budget.”
So what can the average Rhode Islander do to help? Food donations are not unwelcome, but Schiff said ever dollar donated to the food bank can go farther thanks to its discounts and purchasing power.
“I know people want to go out and buy groceries — but that’s not a good use of their dollars,” he said. “We can quickly use those dollars to acquire bulk food at very low costs.”
September is Hunger Action Month, when food banks across the country raise awareness about food insecurity and the impact it has on communities.
RINewsToday note: CEO Andrew Schiff as announced his retirement next year
Thank you to The Rhode Island Current
Photo, top: A row of mostly empty shelves inside the Rhode Island Community Food Bank’s distribution center on Niantic Avenue in Providence. (Photo courtesy of Rhode Island Community Food Bank)
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