A fresh explanation for jump in numbers at food pantries
Pittsburgh area food pantries are reporting jumps in the number of first-time clients they saw in 2019.
They’re attributing a small part of that uptick to the government shutdown early last year.
But another thing happened, too: The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank saw fresh fruits and vegetables increase to represent 30% of its total food distribution by weight, said Brian Gulish, vice president of marketing and communications.
Delivering more fresh food to pantries was a goal set in the food bank’s 2015 strategic plan, he said.
Over the past three years, the emphasis made “a dramatic change” to people in need, said Jana Thompson, pantry coordinator for the Northside Common Ministries. “Now, produce is 50% of what we give out, and everything about this place is happier and healthier.”
That pantry — one of the city’s largest — has seen a 62% jump in new client numbers since 2017.
That year, it counted 498. Last year, it served 807 first-time clients. Its regular clientele is about 1,000 households each month.
The dramatic rise in new visitors is likely explained by more plentiful produce choices, Ms. Thompson said.
“Before 2017, if you didn’t want canned food, we didn’t have much else to offer you,” she said. “These people are barely making it, and now they have healthy food choices, something they couldn’t afford [at the grocery store], something they didn’t think was possible for their families.”
The food bank, located in Duquesne, supplies 365 member agencies and pantries in 11 counties. It gets food from various outlets, including grocery stores, wholesalers and farmers.
Delivering more fresh food to pantries was a goal set in the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s 2015 strategic plan, says Brian Gulish, vice president of marketing and communications.
“There is such an abundance of produce nationally that we want to take advantage of that resource,” Chief Operating Officer Justin Lee said. “We are being more intentional about how we distribute it. We ask people what their preferences are. We procure what they need best.”
Last year, the food bank distributed more than 10 million pounds of fresh produce for the first time in its 40-year history, Mr. Gulish said. “By 2025, we want it to be 20 million pounds, half of what we distribute.”
Stretching the money
Each pantry receives produce commensurate with its client numbers and storage capacity. The pantry coordinators can order what they know their clients want in order to prevent waste, Mr. Gulish said. A nutrition coordinator at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank provides recipe cards to help clients plan a meal with produce that’s available.
Typically, people who receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, have trouble stretching those benefits through the month.
Set up to help out, food pantries through time have used canned goods as their staple. They are cheaper and have long shelf lives. But one benefit of having fresh food in greater quantity to free pantries is that people can stretch their SNAP credits further on other items at the grocery store.
“It’s a tremendous amount of savings,” said Jonas Benton, of the Hill District, a client of the East End Cooperative Ministry’s food pantry in East Liberty. “Produce at the store is very expensive, but those are ingredients that make your food better. You can totally change a meal with an onion and a bell pepper.”
Fish, fruit and vegetables
Mr. Benton introduced his friend Leonard Browder to the East End pantry recently, and for the first time in Mr. Browder’s years of need, he was able to carry home fish, fruit and vegetables, plus a few canned goods.
“The pantry I had gone to on Wylie Avenue shut down,” said Mr. Browder, also of the Hill District. “The reason I didn’t care for it was because they didn’t usually have produce.”
Max Hill, food pantry coordinator at the East End Cooperative Ministry, said 40% of that pantry’s distribution is produce.
He said he doesn’t know how many 2019 clients were new, but numbers were up — to 2,600 from 2,200 in 2018.
“We have been receiving produce for about five years,” he said. “Half was from the food bank, and the other half we picked up from stores.” Most supermarkets donate produce that would otherwise go to landfills if not sold within days.
“Every food pantry should have a relationship with grocery stores,” East End Cooperative Ministry CEO Carole Bailey said. “More people realize that rescuing food is better than wasting it.”
At the Wilkinsburg Community Ministry, an average of 20 to 30 new households a month are visiting the tiny food pantry since service was expanded last year to recipients from Swissvale, North Point Breeze and Braddock, said Ruth Kittner, the ministry’s executive director.
During the federal government shutdown early last year, she said the pantry served a high of 309 families in one month.
Since that level slacked off in March, she said the pantry has served 20 to 30 new clients regularly, an uptick she attributed to fresh produce.
“Ninety percent of our clients get SNAP benefits,” she said. “And that’s not going far enough. It is one of the most successful government benefits, with the lowest amount of fraud. The government itself reports that every dollar in SNAP benefits generates $1.72 in economic activity.”
The Trump administration is proposing a rule change in SNAP distribution, with the argument that it would make practices from state to state more consistent with one another. An estimated 200,000 people in Pennsylvania — 16,000 in Allegheny County — would be cut from the rolls, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Teresa Miller said last fall when the change was proposed.
Under current rules, Pennsylvania and 42 other states take advantage of flexibility to raise SNAP eligibility limits so families are not penalized for assets that include housing or for having money for child care. States also can be less restrictive granting benefits to elders and the disabled who have some savings or own their homes.
To be eligible for SNAP, a household’s gross income must be below 130% of the federal poverty line. In 2019, that was $32,640 a year for a family of four.
The rule change would close a so-called loophole between the $32,640 cutoff and the current $40,000 on which a family of four can still qualify. The proposed change would also jeopardize free school lunches.
‘We replenish produce’
Ms. Kittner said most of the people who use the Wilkinsburg food pantry work. Some hold two or more minimum-wage service jobs without medical benefits.
As small as the Wilkinsburg pantry is — one unit of shelving, with a table for produce and a refrigerator plus some storage in back — it was flush with celery, cabbage, berries, tomatoes, potatoes and sweet potatoes recently. Clients can come in once a week, Ms. Kittner said.
At the Northside Common Ministry food pantry, clients are permitted one shopping visit per month, but they can come in for produce any time the pantry is open — three mornings a week, Ms. Thompson said.
“That’s a pretty radical model, and we commend them on that,” said Marnie Schilken, chief program officer at the food bank. “If you open up access and availability, you can get them eating produce on a more frequent basis. Because when you and I go shopping every weekend, we replenish produce.”
There aren’t many happy stories in the world of people who can’t afford enough food for their families, Ms. Thompson said, “but I am proud and pleased that our people here are less desperate, less stressed. They are a happier group than they were. Less tension, less arguments.
“That comes down to the produce, I believe, and that’s all kudos to the food bank. A can of peas doesn’t make you feel better, but a bag of apples might.”