The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Second Harvest relief doubles
Pandemic creates unprecedented need for food, president says
The largest area food bank is asking for help as it navigates the difficult waters of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
On Aug. 4, Julie Chase-Morefield, president and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, told Lorain County commissioners that in her 22 years in food banking, the need has never been greater.
Between March 1 and July 31,
Second Harvest more than doubled its distribution to 4.6 million pounds of food, an increase of 2.36 million.
“We serve more families than ever,” Chase-Morefield said.
“There are 40 percent new families, 40 percent of those coming to us were new families who had never been to a food pantry before.”
Second Harvest has continued to support the food pantries and hospital programs that have remained open along with working with local school districts in addressing food insecurity.
Over the past five months, Second Harvest has served 70,000 unique individuals in Lorain County; nearly 23 percent of the population, Chase-Morefield said.
With the Aug. 3 announcement that the Ohio National Guard would see a 25 percent cut to its funding along with most other states, it has added to some of Second Harvest’s organizational uncertainty.
It’s unclear how long the National Guard will be able to stay.
“Without the National Guard, we wouldn’t have been able to execute the drive-thru mobile pantry distributions, that at times at Ely Stadium (Elyria) and Black River Landing (Lorain), that at times we were serving 1,000 families at a distribution,” Chase-Morefield said.
Since March, the National Guard have been key to keeping Second Harvest moving, packing food boxes, driving the trucks and overseeing mobile drive-thru food distributions across Lorain County.
Chase-Morefield said Second Harvest currently has 35 National Guard members working at 5510 Baumhart
Road in Lorain.
The soldiers have replaced some of the food bank’s regular volunteers, many of whom are older than 60 years of age and in a high risk category for COVID-19.
“They’re just a wonderful group of professional people who have given up themselves in service to their community,” ChaseMorefield said. “Many of them are from this area, and they have grown up in this area, so it’s extremely meaningful to them to be able to be here and serve.
“But, we remain hopeful that come next Monday (Aug. 10), our soldiers will still be here.”
Looking forward
In the event the National Guard members are no longer able to continue serving at Second Harvest, ChaseMorefield estimates that it could it could reduce their capacity from their present levels serving 1,500 families down to around 500.
In looking forward, Chase-Morefield said the overall financial situation is stable through the end of 2020, but there are concerns about the first part of 2021 when federal funding from the CARES Act is set to expire.
“After the first of the year, we’re looking at what does food look like; the food supply chains have been completely disrupted by everything that’s happened by the closing of the institutions and restaurants,” she said. “So, there’s a lot of food out there that’s out in the network.
“But, unfortunately, a lot of it is packaged for institutional use, and it’s not packaged for use by a consumer at home. So, that has really created a lot of havoc. And it’s really identified that there’s some significant food supply chain issues within this country.
“At one point in April, Second Harvest was running low on food inventory and were competing against grocery stores.”