Karen Miller helps run the food pantry at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Battle Creek. She said it's seen a substantial increase in visitors in the last year.
“I think our average before was 120 to 130 at the highest,” she said. “Now we’re up to 150, sometimes 160.”
Once a week on Tuesday afternoons, patrons can pick out fresh produce and some meat and cheese, as well as 10 items from the dry goods pantry. Another volunteer, Ann Scott, said it used to be able to give out more.
“We used to do 15 items per family,” she said. “But because of the numbers, we had to reduce that unfortunately.”
Dawn Zimmerman Sanders of Battle Creek started receiving food from the pantry a few years ago. Now she also volunteers there. She said she's seen her own food needs increase this year.
“I was getting it for me and my husband, but recently my son and daughter-in-law had to move in with me,” she said. “So now I’m getting it for four.”
St. Peter Lutheran is one of many local food pantries and food banks that have seen demand go up in the last few years. That’s as higher food prices reduce their purchasing power, and federal policy changes threaten to reduce supply.
The USDA told WMUK in a statement that the recent cuts were made to an inflated Bidenera program, and that it will “ensure families continue to have access to affordable and abundant food.”
'The first place people go for help'
St. Peter Lutheran gets most of its food through the South Michigan Food Bank in Battle Creek. The food bank works with 390 partners, many of them faith-based, like St. Peter Lutheran, to distribute food throughout eight counties. Chief Executive Officer Peter Vogel said that before the pandemic, the bank distributed about seven million pounds of food a year.
“Covid landed and changed the whole landscape,” he said. “Since then, we’ve been moving 12, 13 million pounds. Our biggest year was 14 million pounds of food.”
And if economic insecurity increases, Vogel predicts that even more people will be visiting food pantries.
“One of the things we’ve learned is that the first place people will go for help is the food pantry,” he said. “Maybe they won’t go asking for housing help or other things, but they’ll go for food help.”
Vogel said that last year, South Michigan Food Bank received 34 percent of its food through federal programs. The recent USDA cuts meant a loss of about three to four percent of the food bank’s total yearly food supply.
“I can scale back three percent of the food I give out to everybody and that wouldn’t be earth-shattering. You know, one extra can of corn that we give out every month,” she said.
“But more cuts to that would really be problematic. Or cuts to programs that cause more people to get in line and need food. I don’t have the capacity for that. And when I talk to my colleagues around the state, we’re all in the same boat.”
The limits of donations
Jennifer Johnson is executive director of Loaves and Fishes, a food bank and pantry in Kalamazoo. As she walks around the warehouse, she notes that about two thirds of the food bank’s overall supply comes from federal programs.
“What you’ll see in here on the rack is of a combination of food that was donated and food that was purchased, and food that comes through the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture,” she said. “We do have quite a bit of that at the moment, which is great. But that is one of our fears, that it will slow down or even stop at some point. So we’re all question marks.”
The recent cuts meant a loss of about $300,000 worth of food to Loaves and Fishes. Johnson said that if the federal government makes more substantial cuts, it will be difficult for them to make up the difference with fundraising or donations.
“If people can’t afford groceries for themselves, they’re certainly not going to be donating to us. If people can’t afford to pay for things, and rents are higher, they’re not going to be donating funds or food,” she said. “So it makes it very difficult.”
Greta Faworski is associate director of Loaves and Fishes.
“That’s part of the hard part, is not knowing," she said.
"We’re trying to plan out and trying to determine what we have now, how long it will last, and what’s coming in,” she said. “And especially with the USDA, the orders are six months out. We need to be able to count on those things instead of having to pivot at the last minute and purchase.”
Johnson said that Loaves and Fishes is an agency that hates to say no. It’s hoping that no other funding sources disappear, so that it doesn’t have to.
