I did a food bank run this morning. It was a long wait, probably 100 cars in front of me, another 50 behind me. A large food bank semi truck arrived while I was in line. Not much protein, but lots of rutabagas. I've never had them before. I need to learn how to use them. There was an assortment of carbs and nuts.
May I ask, where are you located? what state? It is OK not to answer that, of course, but I am curious because I use the local food bank sometimes too, and our mobile pantries typically serve 300 to 500 families (sometimes two families in the same car) in one mobile pantry event. We had 11 events going on about the same time, this past Saturday.
It sounds like we might be getting a greater variety of fresh foods and protein than you are.
I am in suburban Memphis.
Our food bank serves 38 counties in three different states, including the entire Mississippi Delta region - which is tied with the poverty of the Appalachian mountain region for being the poorest rural regions in the nation. Meantime, in 2019, a national survey was done of urban humger in America, and Memphis came out second in the nation in urban hunger.
Bottom line is that the Mid South Regional Food Bank is serving some of the deepest and most pervasive ”food insecurity” in the nation.
This past Saturday, there were 6 mobile food panntries in Memphis/Shelby Counnty alone, plus 5 more split between northern Mississippi and eastern Arkansas.
I went to one of the Memphis ones.
And though what an individual car was given is down from what it was up until this summer, it sounds like we were served alot more than you were.
There was a limit of just one 5 pound bag of frozen chicken per car - not per family, in cases where there were two families in a single car - (boneless, skinless chicken thighs). And there was a limit of one 5 pound bag of potatoes per car.
But they provided other forms of protein for us, to make up for that.
We were given 30 packages of Lunchables (already made up meals consisting of turkey lunch meat, sliced cheddar cheese, crackers to eat the meat and cheese on, and two Hershey’s kissees for dessert.)
And we were given yogurt - 12 individual sized containers plus 2 one pound containers. They try to give is a gallon of milk, but there has not been any fluid milk given out in over a month. I guess the yogurt was to help make up for the lack of milk.
They gave us alot of fresh food too: fresh strawberries, four ears of corn per family, some cucumbers, a bag of nectarines, and 6 cans of green beans.
This is down from what we used to get. And it does seem like there is alot more irregularity in what we get nowadays. I think we are getting whatever rolls in on the trucks. If the trucks are full, we get more.
I can honestly say I feel the Mid South Food Bank is doing really well for us, given the times and the situation.
But I do have to ask - how much longer can they give out even the reduced amounts they are giving us right now?
