PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The budgets of food pantries in South Jersey are getting tighter, as demand for their service has returned to where it was at the height of COVID-19.
“We’re serving at pandemic or higher levels than we were 18 months ago,” Fred Wasiak, CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey, told KYW Newsradio.
“As we started to see the inflation numbers for the last three or four months, we have been serving in that range of 92,000 to 95,000 people a month.”
Before the pandemic, Wasiak said, the food bank served approximately 50,000 people each month.
“With the inflation, our costs are up 20%,” Wasiak said.
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“Donations of food aren’t keeping up with demand, so that really puts pressure on us that we have to purchase the healthy and nutritious food.”
Wasiak said the Food Bank of South Jersey serves 200 local nonprofit pantries, so it is able to take advantage of some volume discounts.
The buying power is much less at the Friends of Clementon Food Pantry, said director David Cornwell.
“Inflation’s hitting us hard,” Cornwell said.
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“Unfortunately when we try to get food, the shelves are empty in a lot of places. And nobody wants to give you wholesale prices. Everything we’re paying for is retail.”
Cornwell said his clients often face a difficult choice.
“People are scurrying, trying to save every penny they can to get housing, and that leaves them nothing for food,” he explained.
Cornwell says the costs of buying food and maintaining the pantry’s six commercial refrigerators and seven freezers have skyrocketed over the last two years.
“They’re probably tripled since we opened,” he said.
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The Friends of Clementon Food Pantry is holding its second annual car show fundraiser Saturday at Clementon Park and Splash World.
Last year’s event, Cornwell said, raised $7,000.
Visitors to the fundraiser are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food item, Cornwell said.