OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Many food banks are seeing an uptick in need because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unfortunately, donations have also gone down.
“We did see when we all went to the grocery store and saw all those empty shelves that meant for us a dramatic drop in the amount of retail food donations,” Cathy Nestlen, Director of Communications and Marketing at Feeding America, said.
Feeding America has a network of food banks across the country, including the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.
Nestlen says 90 percent of inventory used to come from donations. Now, they’re having to buy more to keep up with the current demand.
“When I talk about food, I’m talking semi-trailer loads of peanut butter, so that’s anywhere from 30,000 to 40,000 pounds, so we’re having to order a lot of food,” she said.
Nestlen says some food banks are seeing up to a 60 percent increase in families needing food assistance.
With many layoffs in the hospitality industry, Jim Hopper with the Oklahoma Restaurant Association says they’ve partnered with different nonprofits to help workers who need food and loans.
“It’s not enough. It needs to be more. But we’re trying to do that until things get back to normal, whatever that looks like,” Hopper said.
Right now, Feeding America isn’t taking volunteers because of the pandemic, so their staff is putting in more work to help as many people as possible.
“Our staff is serving as our volunteers. We’ve gone to six-day work weeks,” Nestlen said.
For more information on Feeding America or to donate, click here.
For the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, click here.
Continued Coronavirus Coverage
