LATHAM, N.Y. — In a 20-year high, one in nine people in the Regional Food Bank service area are food insecure. Up from one in 12 from last year, the increase is around 90,000 people.
“People are struggling with buying food,” said CEO of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York Tom Nardacci. “They’re coming to the charitable food system because it’s a place that they know. They can’t get their lights shut off.”
The statistics come from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study and from the Regional Food Banks’s records which they are trying to expand even more to get as much of a real-time update as they can. With needs as high as they are, Nardacci said they want to know exactly where to send their help.
Food insecurity levels have been high since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nardacci said when the world saw prices rise and many people lost their jobs. But though people have returned to work, prices remain high for everything, not just food.
Nardacci said that some people feel that food is something they can do with a little bit less of, whereas rent, healthcare and other costs aren’t as negotiable. Food still is a need, though, and the statistics confirm what they already see every day at their distribution centers.
The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York covers 23 counties and across all of them, they average out to 12% of people being food insecure. Though they’d love to get it to zero, less than 10% is the goal, Nardacci said; Saratoga and Punam County are the only ones in their service district lower than 10%.
“It’s really costs, costs, costs,” Narcaddi said. “Costs of everything.”
Everyone can feel it, he said: a grocery bill that used to be $150 is now $300 for a family of four. The average cost per meal in the food bank’s service area is 12% higher than last year and 19 cents more per meal than the national average.
It can be hard, he said while walking through their Latham distribution center, to visualize those numbers: 90,000 people, 12%, one in nine. But in the loading dock, there was a pallet full of cases of mostly non-perishable items and a picking list on top that read “BP Watervliet.”
To be picked up that Wednesday, they’d filled out a BackPack Program order for 68 kids to take home the following weekend with ingredients for easy-to-prepare meals including six cases of creamy peanut butter, two cases of strawberry nutri-grain bars, three cases of white rice and a case of apple whirls cereal bowls. For 68 kids over a weekend, the total was 854 pounds of food.
The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York distributes 55 million pounds of food each year. And Nardacci said they know they aren’t reaching everyone.
He offered his hometown county Rensselaer as an example. They provide food for 2.1 million meals but still fall a million short. And they’ve seen it increase as well.
In 2022, there was a 14% meal gap in Rensselaer County, essentially the budget needed to feed those in need divided by the cost per meal. It’s now at 28%.
“It’s a huge number just within that county,” Nardacci said. “But really, and I think the like the overarching story, too, is like we are, we’re very honed in on data.”
Since they do a lot of work through programs, Nardacci said, they look to find ones that can get to the people that need it the most. They source and distribute the food, but it’s the church ladies in their Honda Civics who are unwrapping the pallets and loading cases of chicken into their back seats.
Data provides them with trends and facts they can dig into and use to make sure they are finding the right ways to get food to people. Numbers can also be a very telling story or highlight areas that need work.
People of color are disproportionately affected by food insecurity, but the levels are high; in Saratoga County, double the amount of Black people are affected by food insecurity. In Rensselaer County, it’s triple.
For example, he said, 15% of children are food insecure; what does that look like in Rensselaer County at a granular level? That’s 5000 kids.
“Well, where do these kids live? There’s 5000 kids; where are they? How do we get to them?” Nardacci said. “What we are trying to do is trying to come up with a program or a school or someone who is front-facing for the kids. So we say, well, can we help serve you? Can we do more with you?”
There is a program in the works for kids in Rensselaer County for summer break, he said.
On average, people come to food pantries one and a half times a month, most likely when they’re in between paychecks, he said. But, he said, people have to know that it’s a range of people, and they’ve expanded their coverage to include those that might get left behind.
It’s a single mom, it’s a young person struggling to pay off student loans, it’s the returning Hudson Valley student who’s going to school and working and needs the extra hand and so many more, he said. They need to destigmatize food pantries and realize there is no shame in it.
“The majority of people who go to food pantries, they work,” he said. “They’re underemployed, they’re underpaid. They just need a spot where they can pick up something.
“It’s okay. If you need help, we’re here,” he continued. “Don’t stress, you know, don’t make your life worse. You know, you can come and get some help. It’s okay.”
