New food bank operator coming to Connecticut

“We are such a small state and we’re looking for a way to maximize the resources we are both devoting to feed the state’s hungry. ... We’ve seen the crowds and we continue to feed them. The ultimate driver of all of this is meeting the needs of the people we serve.”

Paul Shipman, a spokesman for the Connecticut Food Bank

An Illinois-based nonprofit is poised to become Connecticut’s third food bank.

Midwest Food Bank officials said they are looking for a location in the Hartford area for a facility that would provide food for the needy in Connecticut and other New England states. Midwest Food Bank has 10 locations in seven states around the country, with the nearest one to Connecticut located outside Harrisburg, Pa.

David Kieser, Midwest Food Bank’s president and chief executive officer, said the organization plans “to leverage our national footprint by serving those in need with dignity and compassion.”

Four individuals already have been selected to serve on the board of directors for the New England division of the Midwest Food Bank, according to Kieser. An executive director and additional board members will be announced early next year, he said.

According to its website, Midwest Food Bank is “a faith-based organization” and its mission is “to share the love of Christ by alleviating hunger and malnutrition locally and throughout the world and providing disaster relief; all without discrimination.”

“Our vision is to provide industry-leading food relief to those in need while feeding them spiritually,” the website notes. Further, the Midwest Food Bank “currently distributes over $23 million worth of food to over 2,000 non-profit organizations each month” from 10 “locations in Illinois, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, East Africa and Haiti,” the website says.

The site also notes that Midwest Food Bank’s more than “32,018 volunteers put in over 309,000 hours of service in 2019, the equivalent of over 154 full-time employees.”

The organization’s move into New England comes even as the state’s two existing food banks are discussing a possible merger.

Officials with the Wallingford-based Connecticut Food Bank and Foodshare, which is located in Bloomfield, announced merger exploration efforts earlier this month.

Paul Shipman, a spokesman for the Connecticut Food Bank, said part of the reason a merger with Foodshare is being discussed is “because we already do a lot of things together already.”

“We are such a small state and we’re looking for a way to maximize the resources we are both devoting to feed the state’s hungry,” Shipman said.

When asked whether the addition of another food bank in the state would affect the ability of the two existing ones to secure resources, Shipman declined comment.

But Jada Hoerr, a spokeswoman for the Midwest Food Bank, said officials with that organization see their entry into Connecticut as “a parallel effort to serve those in need.”

“We have worked well with other food banks in areas that we have entered,” Hoerr said.

Shipman previously has shared statistics that show Feeding America projects hunger will rise by 44 percent in Connecticut Food Bank’s six-county service area to 400,000 people in need in 2020 because of the impact of the pandemic response. That means that 1 in 7 people, including 1 in 4 children, will face food insecurity during the year.

That meant in New Haven County, overall food insecurity was project to rise 38 percent from more than 104,000 people to more than 144,000 people, and in Fairfield County, overall food insecurity was projected to rise 47 percent, from 93,000 to more than 137,000 people.

Shipman said a food distribution event held recently at Rentschler Field attracted more than 1,500 cars.

“We’ve seen the crowds and we continue to feed them,” he said. “The ultimate driver of all of this is meeting the needs of the people we serve.”