Fighting Food Insecurity

How would you describe the faces of hunger? Adults who skip meals to feed their children; children who do not have food available, especially when school is out; parents who work multiple jobs but still have trouble making ends meet; and grandparents who are living on a fixed income but are responsible for raising grandchildren are all accurate pictures and could even be describing you or your neighbor.

Not having enough food consistently or not having access to enough food is a complex problem and does not exist in isolation. Many families, from of all walks of life, suffer with food insecurity and hunger in silence. Millions of people are just one missed paycheck or medical emergency away from hunger. Hard choices are being made every day. Do they purchase groceries, pay bills including rent or house payments, or get needed medicine? And this budget-decision process is now even more challenging with inflation pushing the cost of groceries in Alabama up by 10 percent over the last year.

There is a strong relationship between nutrition, health and food insecurity. Healthy bodies and minds at all ages require nutritious meals. Studies show that people who don’t have enough food or must eat cheaper, processed foods with low nutritional value, can have serious health problems.  Because children’s bodies and brains are developing, they are particularly susceptible to food insecurity. Health issues seen in children include anemia, asthma, depression, anxiety, cognitive and behavioral problems, and a higher risk of being hospitalized. It is estimated that one child out of four will experience hunger in Alabama.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that food-insecure adults had annual health care expenditures $1,834 higher than food-secure adults, for a cumulative median cost of $687 million per state. One in 15 senior adults are in need. They too experience more chronic health conditions like depression, asthma and diabetes.

It seems dire, but there are solutions this pervasive problem, and food banks are powerful weapon in the war on hunger. A food bank is a warehouse of foods for community partners to come and get cases of food to feed those seeking help. Food pantries and other food partners include church food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, children’s programs, veterans’ programs and more. The food bank supplies the food and provides food safety training, and the partners distribute it, free of charge.  Alabama has several food banks; the ones in Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile are in a network of food banks across the United States called Feeding America.

The facility for the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama in Birmingham is 60,000 square feet and has a huge, busy loading dock. Yet it’s still not big enough to store the food needed for the 240 food partners. These partners serve a 12-county radius where the average rate of food insecurity is 16.8 percent and the child rate exceeds 20.4 percent.

Food banks have changed in recent years, shifting their focus to nutrition and including more fresh foods, like fruits and vegetables, and fewer bags of chips and boxes of cookies. In the summer, there are pallets of fresh heirloom tomatoes, wooden crates of corn stacked higher than you can reach and bell peppers of all colors. In the fall, winter squash and sweet potatoes are just a few of the fresh items available. The goal has is no longer distributing “food,” but distributing healthy foods, and eating fruit and vegetables every day and eating less processed foods is critical to being healthy.

Canned goods and non-perishable items are still important to food banks’ work and often come to food banks via food drives. Monetary donations and grant funds help food banks purchase fresh produce, and they also reclaim surplus foods from local grocery stores. For example, in the Birmingham area, Publix donates 30,000 pounds of fresh produce every month; this produce is ordered specifically for the food bank and is NOT the old or wilted products that won’t sell in stores.

The Community Food Bank of Central Alabama works with its food partners but also has its own initiatives help to provide food. Its Kids Café & Family Market provides interconnected services to children at risk of hunger when schools close over the holidays and the summer break. The After-School Meals Program provides healthy suppers and/or snacks to kids throughout the school months. And special food boxes are geared toward senior-specific health needs.

There is no quick fix for food insecurity issues, but The Community Food Bank of Central Alabama and other food banks in the state have made it their mission to feed people in need today and foster collaborative solutions to end hunger tomorrow. While the work accomplished is impressive, the need continues to grow, and your help is needed.

Help comes in many different ways. Consider donating time and volunteering to help put foods in boxes for the partner agencies to pick up. Or provided financial support; no donation is too small or too large. In fact, food banks can stretch just a single dollar to feed four people!

Learn more about The Community Food Bank of Central Alabama and make donations here.