Food Banks in the Time of Corona

Today I got a very disturbing e-mail from the Aurora Food Pantry. They are literally out of food. Here's the video of Executive Director Cat Battista making the plea for us to go out and shop to fill boxes for families, and I wanted to help spread the word.

Food banks everywhere are stretched thin. Do what you can. Thanks.

Hi- The city of Evanston just started food distribution at James Park on 4/15. It will be held every Wednesday through May from 11:00-1:00. You need to show proof of Evanston residency. It is a drive thru. It is cosponsored by the city of Evanston, Northwestern University, and Valli produce. You will get one box of food. There is also a food pantry at Vineyard church on Wednesdays from 6:00-8:00pm near Howard and McCormick and there is a food pantry at Hillside church on the NW side of Evanston on Wednesday evenings and Saturday from 2:00-4:00. There is also a producemobile at Robert Crown once a month.

I just watched some of the coronavirus briefing today, and it opened with Sonny Perdue, who is the Secretary of Agriculture. Right now farmers are dumping lots of milk and produce and some meat because restaurants are not buying lots of food right now. A lot of the milk was being used to make cheese, and there are not nearly as many pizzas being sold right now. Mr. Perdue said that the federal government is going to buy some of the excess food and then distribute it to food banks.

A few days ago I saw a large scale farmer in Florida who used to sell to a lot of restaurants, but his restaurant business dried up, and he has given some of his produce to food banks, but because it is perishable, it is hard to find a home for all of it, and so he has been forced to plow under some of his crops. The subject of the amount of Mexican produce in the grocery stores came up to, and he wished the federal government would limit the amount of imported produce being allowed to come into the country.

There is plenty of food in this country. It is just a distribution problem. The Evanston farmer's market is opening up on 5/2, and Hillside church brings their truck there about 12:30 to do pickups from farmers that have not been able to sell all of their produce. If you make it easy for the farmers they will often donate. Hope this helps, Nancy

NFriday wrote:There is plenty of food in this country. It is just a distribution problem.

Yes, absolutely.

=R=

NFriday wrote:
There is plenty of food in this country. It is just a distribution problem. The Evanston farmer's market is opening up on 5/2, and Hillside church brings their truck there about 12:30 to do pickups from farmers that have not been able to sell all of their produce. If you make it easy for the farmers they will often donate. Hope this helps, Nancy

It is always a distribution problem. As I type this, there are 14 truckloads of fresh Mexican produce sitting in refrigerated trailers 40 miles south awaiting distribution to a variety of food distribution sites throughout Arizona and the western food banks. One of my friends has a charity that rescues a lot of that produce from brokers who have purchased the production of Mexican farms but have been unable to sell into their normal distribution. The charity gets the food; the producers get a tax deduction.

However, should this situation continue, there are real threats to the food production system. First, you have plant closures by Tyson and Smithfield that will reduce the quantity of meat produced in the country. It may be a positive that we are exporting less meats overseas as we may need it here. Second, who will be harvesting the crop this autumn? Will there be an ability to get people across the border to harvest the crops?

The other issue with food banks these days is that many lack the volunteers. I know of two food banks who would generally have 25-30 volunteers who are down to 10 volunteers. Many of their older volunteers are sheltering in place.