A man carries away fresh food at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank giveaway REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
New Mexico food banks are seeing fewer people in their establishments than national food banks despite having one of the highest poverty rates in the country.
More than 70,000 New Mexicans filed for unemployment benefits following multiple business closures due to the coronavirus lockdown measures. However, their food banks are not seeing long queues as other parts of the country, even after an enormous surge in demand.
In San Antonio, Texas, more than 10,000 families visited the local food bank on one day. In New Mexico, Roadrunner Food Bank of New Mexico said it has only been receiving more than 1,800 families a week.
New Mexico food banks began distributing food to the vulnerable population early on in the pandemic. Older people, disabled adults, and some families were fed at local schools.
With the ongoing lockdown restrictions and multiple layoffs, food banks are preparing to meet and feed more people, especially those who are running out of savings amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Local officials and volunteer workers are hard at work preparing necessities for people who are living in impoverished areas. Roadrunner is searching for new vendors to source food from, as well as find more helpers.
Desperately Needing Help
Food banks all over the nation have reported struggling to meet record demands, staff shortages, and food supply issues, putting the establishments into overdrive. Many are offering drive-through services where people are given pantry staples such as milk, eggs, rice, and canned goods.
In Massachusetts, a local food bank ran out of food in the first 45 minutes due to a flood of 900 people. More and more organizations are preparing to accommodate twice the usual numbers as the COVID-19 forces state governments to extend the stay-at-home policies.
Krista Garofalo, chief resource officer of the Treasure Coast Food Bank in Florida, said they had seen people who never needed assistance before coming to their place after being laid off or having their work hours cut.
People line up in their vehicles for an emergency drive-through food and toilet paper distribution hosted by the San Diego Food Bank near the U.S.-Mexico borderREUTERS/Bing Guan
A Feeding America survey discovered a 59 percent decrease in inventory partly due to panic buying. Food banks have also seen a 98 percent increase in demand after state governments began imposing shelter-in-place orders.
People have started panic-buying multiple sacks of rice and boxes of pasta at the start of the coronavirus crisis, leaving plenty of grocery store shelves empty. But manufacturers are having trouble keeping up with the demand.
US lawmakers have called on the USDA to prioritize local farmers whose contracts have been canceled by the distancing measures. Organizations urged the agriculture department to implement a voucher program where food banks can directly receive produce from farmers. The government would then cover some of the cost of the harvest for the farmers to breakeven.
The Trump administration allocated $9.5 billion to the USDA from its recent $2 trillion relief bill. The budget will be used to buy food products from farmers and redistribute them to food banks across the nation.
To help with the surge, the USDA is also providing food to states through programs such as local school meal drives and food stamps.
