MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In the Morgantown area, one agency is dealing with an astronomical increase in requests for food assistance.
On WAJR’s “Talk of the Town,” Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom said they help families in need with food boxes that typically last for up to five days. In the last 30 days, Bloom said those requests gone from about five to more than 100 even before federal assistance ends officially this weekend. Bloom said fear among families already dealing with food insecurity could be driving the increase.
“We were averaging maybe five of these requests in the last eight days and in the last eight days we’ve had 30, and in the last month we’ve had 100 and this is before the SNAP benefits have stopped,” Bloom said.
The food distribution system lost a key component when $1.2 billion dollars was cut early in the Trump administration. The United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) would purchase food from local farmers who would then distribute it to families in the area. That cut eliminated many of the bulk food supply options food banks throughout the state use.
“You had a program where the federal government paid local farmers for the food and distributed it back into the community,” Bloom said. ” That is not happening anymore, so becoming more andmore difficult to find large amounts of food.”
Amanda Bolyard with Pantry Plus More has several years experience dealing with families needs with the annual “Back to School Bash” that gets kids and families ready for the start of classes each year. The absence of bulk options has become a serious problem for them as they plan monthly food distribution events.
“It’s not often you can call a grocery store and order 600 pounds of ground meat at a reasonable price,” Bolyard said. ” It’s important for it to be a reasonable price so we can stretch it and we have a responsibility to our donors to not waste their money.”
Bloom said the cuts and disruptions in the supply chain have hit when he believes the community was beginning to rebound from a pair of catastrophic events. But, he said this situation was avoidable and he lays the blame at the feet of lawmakers in Washington DC that are unable to reach a deal to reopen the federal government.
“We were coming out of the cycle of poverty- the opioid crisis and the food insecurity,” Bloom said. ” We were turning it around and in the last six months we’ve taken two steps backwards and I’m very angry.”
Right now there are about 350 families, maybe more that are depending on a group, church, or organization like Pantry Plus More for help and it’s not clear how much help is out there. Bolyard said they are looking for supply and also planning to expand food distribution events coming in the month of November.
“We’re trying to quickly organize plans to help these families,” Bolyard said. ” We typically have one distribution per month and we are working quickly to organize an additional distribution event that will be a pop-up.”