INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana's hunger-fighting network continues to shift gears to keep pace with the evolving challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To ensure the safety of clients and volunteers, some food banks and pantries are distributing food through a drive-through; others are offering curbside pick-up.
Katy Bunder, president and CEO for Food Finders Food Bank in Lafayette, said they're moving their community pantry into a larger leased space - a 19,000 square-foot grocery store - in order to allow for adequate social distancing.
"Instead of leaving people standing outside waiting to get into the food pantry, we'll be able to operate like a grocery store where we count the number of people going in," Bunder explained. "And we put tape and signs telling people to social distance. And of course we'll require masks. It should be a game changer for us."
With fewer volunteers available, some state agencies and the Indiana National Guard have stepped in to help serve meals.
Food banks are incurring increased costs for personal protective equipment, logistics and staffing.
COVID-19 has also increased the need for food donations.
Victor Garcia, CEO for Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, said they're grateful for state and federal assistance programs that are providing healthy, fresh foods. However, he said perishable foods create new storage challenges.
"We fortunately have a fairly large cooler/freezer space sitting at around 4,000 square feet, but we are finding ourselves with capacity issues," Garcia said. "We were able to source a refrigerated trailer, but even with that, we are still having to turn away donated perishable products occasionally."
Garcia said they've also enhanced a lot of their programming, including mobile market distributions and Pantry Pack home-delivery meals.
"Volunteers take boxes of groceries to seniors who may not have transportation or may be immunocompromised," Garcia said. "We also launched Pantry Pack Head Start, so working with the local Head Start program in identifying some families at high risk for food insecurity and using volunteers to deliver those to the homes."
While facing the challenges at hand, Bunder noted food banks are preparing for what's ahead.
"The last recession in 2008 was with us for a long time," Bunder said. "And if you're low-income when a crisis happens, it takes a really long time to get out of that situation. And so, I think low-income people will be impacted for years to come."
It's estimated food insecurity will rise by 40% among Indiana residents this year.
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By Josh Israel for the Wisconsin Independent.
Broadcast version by Judith Ruiz-Branch for Wisconsin News Connection reporting for the Wisconsin Independent-Public News Service Collaboration
Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced $1.13 billion in fiscal year 2025 funds for a pair of programs to help schools, child care centers, and food banks obtain locally sourced foods. After schools and other facilities had begun working out arrangements with local farmers, President Donald Trump’s administration informed them on March 7 that the programs had been canceled, according to Politico.
A USDA spokesperson told the outlet that the $660 million Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program and the $472 million Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program would be canceled because “these programs, created under the former Administration via Executive authority, no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.”
Wisconsin had been set to receive more than $11 million in fiscal year 2025 from the Local Food for Schools program and about $5.5 million from the Local Food Purchase Assistance program.
The USDA did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins told Fox News on March 11 that these were “COVID-era programs” and were not reaching their intended targets, saying that the Biden administration was “trying to spend more and more money”: “Right now, from what we are viewing, that program was nonessential, that it was a new program, and that it was an effort by the Left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary.”
Kaitlin Tauriainen is president of the School Nutrition Association of Wisconsin, a nonprofit coalition of school nutrition professionals. In a phone interview, she told the Wisconsin Independent that the Local Food for Schools funds had been great for both students and food producers and that the cuts would be felt: ”Moving towards these healthier, locally grown items is a huge step in the right direction for our students. Especially if you want us to be cooking scratch meals that are organic and locally grown, it’s hard for us to do that with the budget that we have. And not only is it hurting the students and the schools that are consuming this food, but it’s really making a huge impact on our farmers.”
Tauriainen, a registered dietitian, also serves as child nutrition coordinator for the Ashwaubenon School District in the suburbs of Green Bay. She said the program had made it possible for the district to buy more locally sourced meats: “We started a task force probably 15 years ago and have been doing a lot of work in bringing in fresh local fruits and vegetables, but the LFS dollars allowed us to purchase different things, like ground beef and hamburger patties, more center-of-the-plate items.”
The Trump administration’s cuts will leave a hole in the budget. “It’s difficult,” Tauriainen said. “We have roughly $2 to spend on all of our lunches, which is not a lot of money. And the way that our government funding is set up, the commodity foods that we get from the federal government are typically big box, major corporations. So I’m not buying beef from my neighboring farm and using my government dollars for that. … So it’s difficult, and I fear that, you know, for a lot of school districts, a lot of the new initiatives that they were doing with bringing in fresher items and helping support their local communities won’t be at the level it was the last couple of years.”
Stacy Nelson, director of food and nutrition services for the School District of the Menomonie Area and also an officer of the School Nutrition Association, said in a phone interview that her district had also been able to purchase local grass-fed beef and produce through the program: “It was a really great opportunity to not only be able to afford and fairly compensate the local farmers for their agriculture work, but it was also an opportunity that we could teach the students what it is to support local, where their food comes from, and the importance of that connection.”
The cuts have been difficult, Nelson said, and forced the Menomonie schools to cancel their arrangement with the local beef farm: “I had to let him know that I couldn’t partner with him again this school year, and that was really devastating on my end, just because we did have such a great relationship. His product was wonderful. So it was really hard. And then, on his side of it, he had already planned and knew that he had this beef spoken for. And so then he had to find other avenues to get it sold. And so it puts not only the schools in a bad spot, but it put that farmer in a bad spot, and then it also affects the local economy.”
“It gave us that extra money so that we wouldn’t have to buy from big box, already prepared items, and we could grow our menu a little bit,” Nelson added. “I know we’re going to do everything that we can to still do that, but it’s getting really tough, because, I mean, everyone that goes to the grocery store knows that food costs went up. It went up for us too.”
Seasonal Harvest, a De Pere business that connects local small- and medium-sized producers with wholesale markets, received Local Food for School funds to provide foods to Ashwaubenon and other Wisconsin school districts. Co-owner and general manager Sheri Howard told the Wisconsin Independent that the program had been a great boost to local farms: “What that money did was allow us to go back and say, Hey, we want you farms, we want you to put some crops in the ground for this program. We’ll buy them from you. When you think of a farm raising vegetables and going to the farmers market and hoping somebody buys them and that the stall next door isn’t undercutting them, in price, this is a great opportunity to give them another income stream where it’s wholesale, it’s there, it’s stable, and many of them used that money to help improve their infrastructure. So buy a tractor, buy a truck, put in a new cooler. The money itself allowed for growth in our farming community, which is what Seasonal Harvest is all about, allowing these farms to thrive, not just survive.”
“We got $250,000, I would say, in LFS funds,” Howard continued. “And some of the schools also got LFS funds. So as a financial, fiscal impact, maybe $500,000 for the area. That’s a lot of food when you’re talking vegetables, it is a lot of food, and it’s a lot of money going back to the farms. Will it take us down? Absolutely not, because we were operating before the LFS, and we’ll operate after. But the added advantage of allowing for growth, a bigger growth that will be diminished? Absolutely. … It also is going to diminish the amount of products that the schools are able to serve their kids because they don’t have a budget that can replace that.”
Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and 30 Democratic colleagues urged Rollins to restore the programs in a March 14 letter.
“We ask that you reverse the cancellation,” they urged. “We have grave concerns that the cancellation … poses extreme harm to producers and communities in every state across the country. At a time of uncertainty in farm country, farmers need every opportunity to be able to expand market access for their products.”
The elimination of the programs comes as Congress is considering massive cuts to safety net programs. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives passed a budget resolution on Feb. 25 that requires at least $230 billion in cuts to programs that are under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Agriculture, for fiscal years 2025 through 2023.
In January, Politico published a document circulated by House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) listing possible spending cuts to offset President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts and spending priorities. Among the items on the list was $3 billion in cuts to the Community Eligibility Provision that allows many school systems to offer free meals to all students.
Another possible measure on the list is the requirement that all kids receiving free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch in schools provide documentation to prove need. Such a measure, Arrington estimated, would save $9 billion.
According to a fact sheet published by the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center, Arrington’s proposed cuts would kick 666 Wisconsin schools out of the Community Eligibility Provision program, affecting more than 320,000 students.
“We’re giving them fresh fruits and vegetables, we’re giving them protein and whole grains, and we’re doing it on a really small budget, but we’re still providing them the best food that we can,” Nelson said. “And the reason that that’s important, I know everyone’s been hungry, and having to sit through something, it’s really hard to retain any information or to participate and have a good attitude about things if all you can think about is that you’re hungry and you’re not sure where that next meal is going to come. And unfortunately, it’s the reality that kids throughout not only the state of Wisconsin but the whole United States are facing and continuing to pull programs that are meant as a support to those kids isn’t going to make America healthy again, which is what we keep saying we’re trying to do.”
Josh Israel wrote this article for the Wisconsin Independent.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is cutting two federal programs that provide over $1 billion annually to support schools and food banks in purchasing local food.
Advocates working to end hunger in Oregon say these cuts will harm small farmers, schoolchildren and some of the state's most vulnerable residents.
Sarah Weber Ogden, executive director of Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, said both programs are very popular.
With one in six Oregon children facing food insecurity combined with rising food prices, she said these cuts could not come at a worse time.
"These programs feed hungry folks in our communities," said Ogden. "They support local growers and producers. And so this decision represents cruelty from my perspective."
Oregon Food Bank says it was expecting to receive about 90 truck loads of food this year from the U.S.D.A. through the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, but the orders have been canceled.
The organization reported a record number of visits last year, nearly a third more than the previous year.
Oregon's local food producers were expecting more than $12 million in federal funding over the next three years through the Local Food for Schools Program.
Patrick Roelle fishes out of Winchester Bay, Ore., and supplies tuna to six school districts across the state.
He said when he sells his fish locally -- rather than shipping it overseas -- Oregon processors, packers and shippers benefit as well.
"And then the ultimate value," said Roelle, "is when the students get the chance to eat the finest quality products the planet has to offer."
Roelle said he is hopeful the Trump administration, which says the cuts are part of making the U.S.D.A. more efficient, will decide to reinstate the program.
Ogden said Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon and others have asked the state to help fill in the gaps from the lost federal funding, but it is not clear yet what is available.
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For nearly one in eight Mississippians, monthly SNAP benefits provide a critical lifeline, one now at risk as congressional Republicans propose $230 billion in cuts.
New data confirm the state leads the nation in food assistance reliance, with 13.1% of residents depending on the program, far above the 8.3% national average. Advocates warned the reductions would exacerbate hunger in the nation's poorest state, where one in five children already faces food insecurity.
Rep. Yvette Diane Clarke, D-N.Y., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, condemned the proposal during a recent news conference.
"These cuts to SNAP will only worsen food insecurity and hardship in Black and brown communities, reduce revenue for local businesses and disrupt our food supply chain," Clarke contended.
Her warning hits hard in Mississippi, where Black households experience food insecurity at more than twice the rate of white households. Among SNAP recipients in the state, 42% are children. Republicans argued the cuts promote fiscal responsibility and work incentives. But critics pointed to Mississippi's nation-leading 18.4% poverty rate and rural job gaps as barriers to stricter work requirements.
The economic ripple effects could be severe. U.S. Department of Agriculture data show every dollar in SNAP benefits generates $1.50 in local economic activity.
Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., is the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee overseeing nutrition programs.
"SNAP's effects go beyond just the people it feeds but to the farmers and the businesses that provide the food," Bishop explained. "In fact, if the Republicans' cut to SNAP goes into effect, it puts at risk over 285,000 jobs. Real people are going to be hurt."
With Farm Bill negotiations set to begin next month, the outcome could affect 157,000 Mississippi children who rely on SNAP. Democratic leaders vowed to fight the cuts, while Republicans called them a necessary budget adjustment.
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