Challenging year prepares Texas food banks
About 1 in 7 Texas households don’t have access to all the food they need, but that grim statistic has a silver lining.
Despite an ongoing pandemic, supply chain chokeholds and rising prices for everything from food to rent, that statistic hasn’t gotten worse over the past year, thanks in part to a vast food distribution network that includes 21 regional food banks covering all 254 Texas counties.
“We were able to basically keep hunger at bay for millions of Texans,” said Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, the state’s largest hunger relief network, which includes those 21 food banks.
However, this year revealed another vulnerability for hungry Texans and response organizations when the February freeze paralyzed most of the state under blankets of snow and ice, exacerbating food insecurity problems that typically rise during winter amid higher utility costs, the need for holiday spending and reduced access to school breakfasts and lunches.
The food bank network swung into action as the ice melted, setting up emergency distribution sites like one at Del Valle High School that got food to more than 2,100 families on the first Saturday after the thaw.
Once the pent-up demand was met, work shifted into making sure food banks could better meet another devastating freeze or similar widespread disaster.
At the Central Texas Food Bank, which distributed almost 54 million meals last year, that meant installing battery-operated lighting and wiring two gymnasium-sized refrigerators and a freezer so they could be hooked up to generators, then lining up rental generators to be ready if needed. (A donated generator is expected to arrive later next year.)
The food bank also committed to keeping an emergency supply on hand that includes two truckloads of nonperishable food — roughly 1,800 boxes, each containing about 21 meals — and three truckloads of bottled water, said the food bank’s Paul Gaither.
The February freeze was a call to action,
Gaither said.
“The days we had to sit idle, it just ate us up inside,” he said. “We knew people were in need out there, and we just couldn’t get to them. It’s just a horrible feeling.”
The Central Texas Food Bank also encouraged about 250 partner organizations — food pantries, community centers and charities that help distribute up to 80 percent of the food bank’s meals — to begin preparing for the next disaster. In addition, the organization’s food resourcing teams keep a close watch on the weather to provide as much notice as possible up and down the food distribution chain, he said.
“Hopefully, the February storm was a once a generation or lifetime thing that we won’t have to live through again anytime soon, but you have to prepare for it, right?” Gaither said.
Feeding Texas’ Cole said she’s confident that the state’s food bank system is in better shape if another devastating winter storm hits.
“We learned a lot about disaster preparation and response in the last two years,” she said. “We’ll be prepared to do what we do, which is to get food and water and emergency supplies to people.”
How to help
Donations are the lifeblood of food banks, and the winter holidays offer a number of opportunities to have contributions matched dollar-for-dollar by foundations, businesses and other donors, Gaither said.
“Because of our economies of scale, we can turn each dollar donated into four meals,” he said.
Volunteers drive the state’s food distribution network, but the pandemic has left some organizations strapped for help, Cole said, adding that safety protocols are a high priority at food banks and other distribution points.
At the Central Texas Food Bank, “we’re fairly good with volunteers through the holiday season,” Gaither said. “But as soon as the holidays are over, we see a huge dropoff. The need doesn’t go away after Christmas.”
Like similar operations in Texas, the Central Texas Food Bank website, centraltexasfoodbank.org, has buttons to click to make a donation or volunteer.
Before the pandemic, Texas food banks gave out about 450 million pounds of food a year. In 2020, it was close to 1 billion pounds. “More people are needing food more regularly — people who never in a million years thought they’d need to rely on a food pantry,” Cole said.
How to get help
The Feeding Texas website has a “Get Help” button that can locate, by ZIP code, nearby food distribution sites and other services across Texas. Local food pantries can also be identified by calling 211, Cole said.
The Central Texas Food Bank’s website offers a “Find Food Now” link that can locate groceries, hot meals and kids’ meals in the 21 counties served by the organization.