Nothing prepared food bank for hunger surge
By the end of this year, Mark Quandt will oversee the distribution of more than 60 million pounds of food to feed hungry people in 23 upstate counties through the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.
That’s equivalent to the weight of two Brooklyn Bridges, 80 Boeing 747s or 4,285 African elephants.
It is a staggering volume, unfathomable save for the fact that the coronavirus pandemic has created povertystricken masses and hunger more widespread than anyone has ever seen. The not-for-profit organization distributes food to more than 1,000 agencies, including nearly 600 soup kitchens, food pantries and homeless shelters. Demand continues to climb as economic hardship deepens and hunger spreads.
“It happened so fast and hit so hard, it’s been unbelievable,” said Quandt, executive director, who has run the food bank for 37 years, all but its first season.
That 60 million pounds is a 50 percent increase over last year’s 41 million pounds distributed, which was an all-time record. Quandt has led the food bank through some very tough times, including three major recessions: early 1990s, early 2000s and the most severe in 2008. He marshaled additional resources during crippling natural disasters that caused spikes in demand such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The coronavirus pandemic is exponentially worse.
“You cannot prepare for something of this magnitude,” Quandt said. “We had a lot of inventory when the lockdown began on March 16, but we were running through product so fast.”
The pandemic’s COVID-19 recession created a new index of economic misery. In the past four months, more than 3 million New Yorkers have lost their jobs. An estimated 80 percent of the state’s households have lost or expect to lose income by August, according to a report released last week by state Comptroller Thomas Dinapoli.
“This has pushed us to do more than ever before to meet the need,” said Quandt, who increased delivery schedules and made other adjustments.
The Regional Food Bank has 15 trucks and tractor-trailers on the road each day, a record number. Quandt added eight employees to his 100-person staff and a majority of 2,000 volunteers continue to assist. Nearly 60 percent of the organization’s $9 million annual budget comes from donations.
In this time of unparalleled crisis, Quandt is a resolute leader who has stayed true to his vocation since we shared a house as grad students 40 years ago.
“I consider this work a calling,” he said.
Panic-buying and hoarding wiped out supermarkets and caused typical large donations of food to dry up. The nation’s food-supply chain was severely disrupted by quarantine shutdowns and COVID-19 cases. Quandt pivoted and bought bulk food at discount to supplement the Regional Food Bank’s meager inventory. He also tapped into federal programs to leverage more food.
“I could not find any supplier in the country in April who had pasta. It was an eight-week wait to fill our order,” Quandt said. “I monitored our inventory in early June and it was all zeroes. We were out of everything.”
Quandt’s tapped his vast network in the industry, built up over four decades, to source more inventory.
When I stopped in late last Friday afternoon, Quandt was at his desk at the food bank, a sprawling warehouse and office complex off Route 7 near Albany International Airport.
I had not seen him in a few years, but he is little changed since 1983 when he graduated with a master’s degree in social work from the University at Albany. He remains soft-spoken, with an air of humility and an uncommon devotion to feeding the hungry,
He could have gone into a lucrative family business, Quandt’s Food Service Distributors, as his two brothers did. Instead, Quandt worked with emotionally disturbed children for five years in Lockport after earning a bachelor’s degree at St. Bonaventure University.
“I felt a pull toward human services and followed my heart,” he said.
Quandt met his future wife, Christine, at St. Bonaventure. They worked together at the children’s home and both were accepted into the Ualbany School of Social Welfare’s master’s degree program in social work in 1981.
In 1981, Quandt and I rented a three-bedroom apartment off Quail Street in the student area of Pine Hills. I recruited a friend of mine from the English department, Klauspeter Schmidt, a grad student from Wurzburg, Germany. Klauspeter and I spent our fair share of time in taverns popular with college students in our neighborhood. Not Mark. He studied hard, partied little and was austere. He bought a big jar of peanut butter and a loaf of white bread each week, his main food source. He married Christine in 1982 and moved out of the apartment. He still wears to work a social worker’s wardrobe: faded blue jeans, white tennis sneakers and a polo shirt.
“I love this work because we are doing something meaningful to help people in need and we get to see the good side of humanity every day,” Quandt said.
While navigating unprecedented work demands of the coronavirus pandemic, Quandt has been dealing with a family health crisis. Christine, his wife of 38 years, fell and suffered a major spinal injury in the spring of 2019. She spent five weeks in a New York City hospital’s neurological intensive care unit, followed by months of intense rehabilitation. She is making steady progress and regaining movement and motor skills. She suffered no cognitive damage.
“It’s been a very rough year, but we’re grateful for her gains,” Quandt said.
The Quandts, who live in Schoharie, have four children and three grandchildren.
His wife retired after many years as a social worker at Schoharie Elementary School shortly before her fall.
At 66, Quandt conceded that the idea of retirement has crossed his mind, but he has no firm plans or time frame. He is a devout Catholic and a man of faith who prays for guidance.
A simple saying has framed his career: “I’d rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable.”