The need to feed grows in state
Even as more people get vaccines, many still don’t know where their next meal is coming from, especially in Eastern Massachusetts.
Food insecurity has soared by 66% since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and by 117% among children, according to the Greater Boston Food Bank.
“There’s no vaccine for hunger,” said Catherine Drennan, a food bank spokeswoman.
Overall, the state has seen a 59% increase in food insecurity, meaning one in eight people are unsure how they will get their next meal, Drennan said. Eastern Massachusetts has been particularly hard hit, leaving one in five children food insecure, she said.
“When people are vaccinated, our work is not anywhere near done,” said Stephanie Tyler Smith, program director at Food for Free, a Cambridge-based hunger-relief agency.
From last May to October, Food For Free distributed boxes of fresh produce that the U.S. Department of Agriculture put together under its Farmers to Families Food Box Program. But since late fall, access to the program has become more limited, Tyler Smith said, leaving agencies like hers scrambling to fill a critical gap in the midst of the pandemic.
The Biogen Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Cambridge-based neuroscience company Biogen, Inc., stepped in and gave Food for Free $100,000 to help it launch a new Just Eats Grocery Box Program. Life Science Cares pitched in $50,000, and Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., committed $20,000.
Food For Free plans to use the funds to produce 1,000 boxes of food weekly and contract another 2,000 per week through the Boston Area Gleaners, a nonprofit that collects surplus farm crops for people in need. The boxes will go to schools, food pantries and low-income housing sites in Boston and area communities.
In the meantime, the food bank is calling on Congress to take several steps in its next stimulus package.
Among them are increasing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits by 15% for the duration of the pandemic and economic recovery, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit to provide support for families in need and cut child poverty in half, and budgeting an additional $900 million for The Emergency Food Assistance Program.