Here’s a last-minute gift idea that nobody will return: food.
Instead of unearthing exactly the right present for someone who probably doesn’t need it (or even want it), you can use that money to help ease a serious crisis now facing the nation’s food banks. And you don’t have to find a parking space, or know the right size. Food fits all families.
That’s what we’re doing this year, and we were persuaded by some stunning statistics. Over the next few weeks, the nation’s feeding services are facing a shortfall of almost 12 million meals, according to Second Harvest, a national network of more than 200 food banks.
Huge companies like Wal-Mart and Kroger have stepped in, donating millions of pounds of food this week, but individual contributions are still desperately needed. As Vicki Escarra, president of Second Harvest, put it: “The demand for help is unprecedented. Food banks across the country are being forced to give people less, and worse, even turn people away as they run out of food.”
This crisis has many causes, starting with a sharp rise in needy families, 20 percent or more in some places. For these families, fuel costs are staggering, wages are stagnating, homes and health insurance are slipping away.
“The overall picture is that household incomes are kind of stuck,” Lane Kenworthy, a professor at the University of Arizona, told The New York Times. “There’s very little way to increase income, and most people have a very heavy debt load. Any event that increases your costs is really, really troublesome, because you’re already stretched thin.”
But as the demand for food spikes, the supply keeps shrinking. One main reason is the market. When food prices are low, the government supports them by buying up surplus commodities, like potatoes and apples, and then giving the foodstuffs away. But for the past few years, market prices have remained high, so the government buys less food and has less to give to food banks. In 2003, this program doled out $242 million worth of surplus food; last year, the total dropped to $67 million.
Moreover, the private sector has gotten far more efficient, using computers and delivery services to stock shelves with the right products at the right time. That cuts down waste, but it also slashes the number of outdated items donated to feeding services. As Darren Hoffman, a food-bank official in Los Angeles, told the Times: “Efficiency has kind of been the enemy of the food bank.”
Search the Internet for the phrase “food bank” and a dozen horror stories pop up:
