A Year of Feeding Those in Need

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the coronavirus lockdown; that is, the moment when many jobs were first lost and when food and essential products suddenly became hard to find. This table shows how the need for food in our community -- Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the surrounding area -- has grown in the year of the coronavirus. The yellow line shows food distribution totals by Food Gatherers, the Ann Arbor Food bank, from March, 2020, through February, 2021. The green line shows the previous year. The need has been very great, and Food Gatherers’ effectiveness in collecting food and distributing it through their own and through end-user social work organizations has been a huge task.

Food Gatherers writes:

“Since the pandemic began, Food Gatherers has distributed between 700,000 and one million pounds of food each month, a significant increase over the same months in the previous year.”

“Our total this year [2020] is an 18.7% increase from last year and the average distribution per day was 21,542 pounds of food!”

Hunger in our community, in our state, in the USA, and throughout the world is a great concern, mine as well as that of many others. As the pandemic began and continued, more and more people lost their jobs, increasing their dependence on social services from private and public sources in our community. I have been following these issues, and I have been writing from time to time about the challenges to our society as hunger stalks our land. I have tried to support Food Gatherers and their partner organizations with donations of money. 

I have hope for the near future. Many workers are beginning to find jobs again. Vaccination is providing safety for more people to work and to resume normal lives. School re-openings have given children better access to feeding programs as well as better education. We have a new administration in Washington with a better will towards human needs and with a strong new law offering financial support for those who need it. However, our society still has a lot of work to do in helping the weakest of our communities.

I hope those of my readers who have the means to help others will continue to do so in the coming months. Update to this post: modern food banks have several ways to purchase food at favorable prices. So contributing money, if you can afford to do so, helps them a great deal. In some ways cash contributions are more effective than donating canned and pantry goods, though food banks also welcome food contributions from both individuals and businesses. When more people can safely do so, food banks also have many jobs for volunteers. There are many ways to help!

I wish you safety and good health.