(EFE).- Skyrocketing inflation rates in the United States, where levels have hit a 30-year high, are not only impacting the country’s poorest families but also the food banks that provide them with a safety net.
A rise in the price of everyday items is piling more financial misery on those already struggling to buy food, a situation affecting an estimated 45 million people in the US, including 15 million children.
One in five children in the country is going hungry, according to Feeding America, which manages a network of 200 food banks.
Faced with soaring inflation, food banks are having to downsize meal portions and replace products such as turkey and butter with cheaper alternatives in the run up to Thanksgiving, Feeding America and other NGOs have warned in recent weeks.
DC Food Project, which helps school-age children in Washington D.C., has not yet had to scale down portions but is struggling to secure protein-rich produce within budget.
“Produce is so expensive, that’s been the number one thing that families cannot afford,” Lucie Leblois, one of the project’s founders, told Efe.
“And protein for sure right up there, we try really hard to come up with creative ways to provide protein for these families, so we could come up with tuna pouches, chicken pouches, but it is so expensive.”
DC Food Project distributes its food boxes to roughly 750 Washington school students every two weeks. Each is made up of $15-worth of produce designed to sustain a family of four for 10 days.
Beyond inflation, what worries Leblois the most is the hunger disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic children in Washington, one of the world’s richest but most economically and socially disparate cities.
The Covid-19 pandemic lit the fuse for an explosion of poverty in the city.
Before the health crisis, the main food bank in the US capital, Capital Area Food Bank, distributed around 30 million meals a year but that number has since shot up to 75 million.
The number of children with insecure access to food in Washington went from one in five to one in three in that time.
To meet some of these needs, the majority of public schools offer free breakfast to students, and occasionally free dinners in the evening.
But the children who benefit from these school initiatives might then go without adequate food at the weekend or during vacations like Thanksgiving.
This is where the DC Food Project steps in to fill the gap, setting up every two weeks in a school car park where, after taking a delivery of food donated by DC Central Kitchen, a charitable organization run by Spanish chef José Andrés, NGO workers sort the food boxes for distribution. EFE
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And most of the inflation on all fronts is do to the increase in the price of American energy where transportation costs are a major part of food., and the means of getting critical goods to markets. Joe closes the American pipelines while approving Russian pipelines to Europe. Does he think their oil cleaner to burn…no. He now raids the Strategic American oil reserves that Trump filled at $35-40/barrel of American job creating oil, to be replaced with American job losing Russian, and middle east oil at $85/barrel with both he, his Biden crime family and his Russian buddies getting richer and more powerful for the manipulation of it. Just how many of Hunter’s paintings can they buy at $500K each to equal 10% of our oil reserve? The Russians must have all the dirt on Joe and know which closet the Biden Family skeletons are buried to blackmail him into such obvious act of traitorous collaboration with America’s sworn enemies. He redefines the meaning of fraternization with the enemy which by his American debilitating acts proves he is clearly with the foreigners not WE THE PEOPLE whose pockets he has imaged so many ways and means to pick. He will soon make America look envious of Old Mother Hubbert’s bare cupboard. She at least had a bone to throw to the dog for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
i remember christmas when jimmy carter was president i was in 10th grade my parents struggling to find work,no gasoline
hostages in iran and we did without presents that year and if we give chairman mao biden a couple more years we will see a repeat
of jimmy carter.
i am affraid we will not make it til the 2022 midterms.
AND NOTE. BOTH decades, had DEMON RATS IN CONTROL…
Carter and biden!
I also remember Jimmy Carter, a nightmare I’d like to forget. I was in the Army and TWICE we almost didn’t get paid! The dummycrats had full control of congress and couldn’t even pass a new budget on time. Our equipment was old leftover junk from the Viet Nam War and morale was down in the sewer. It was like the U.S. military was repeating the mistake of NO preparedness like it was before Pearl Harbor and again when the Korean War broke out. Then when I was discharged the last year of that horrible presidency, there was runaway inflation which caused runaway unemployment so bad you couldn’t buy a job. The price of gas doubled in 1979 which caused a trucker strike because the government wouldn’t allow the trucking industry to pass the higher fuel cost onto the customer. Then Carter decides to get tough with the USSR and put on a grain embargo which severely hurt America’s farmers and anyone who lived in a highly agricultural state. This caused massive farm bankruptcies in the early 1980s.
That makes me wonder, HOW MANY OTHER times have the dems been in total control but STILL CAN’T pass a single damn budget.
This is right in Biden’s backyard. It is in Congress’ backyard. How do they ignore such an aching need that stares them right in the face every single day? The elites are insulated from such reality—they have their fine homes—perhaps chefs in some instances—a big salary—and lavish perks—they are incapable of comprehending such a basic need.
An article on here yesterday highlighted a huge donation by Jeff Bezos to Obama’s Foundation—while those needing food remain in need on the outside. Congress has been pushing an exorbitant “infrastructure” bill running into the billions of dollars. Was any of that money allocated to address hunger right in their own city? Nope—it was wasted on frivolous projects and served only to increase the national debt. Very little, if any, good from it at all.
The wherewithal exists in DC to address the hunger problem there—why isn’t it?
“The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” Matthew 26:11
So, the King and his Court will have their lavish celebrations with more than enough food to go around—but they will not see the faces of the nameless poor upon whom they have inflicted suffering—and is even being felt by middle class America. We aren’t worthy of their concern.
I wonder how often the very wealthy, the likes of Bezos, et al, actually donate to food banks and other non-profit organizations directly, instead of foundations that are politically connected.
SINCE THEY still get food, they don’t CARE what happens to, we the serfs..
Look to Joe Biden for the destruction of our economy, with soaring inflation the food banks suffer!
Many will have to suffer, especially the poor, to bring about the transformation to the new socialist regime. The change is being initiated from the very top but only those at the bottom suffer for what isn’t their cause!
Not to worry,,we ALL will sonn be at the bottom in Biden created equity where suffering is equally distributed except for the Socialist elite. At least under the Captalist elite we got to eat and have jobs.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery”-Churchill
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Churchill
Though, what is the price of the vehicles, most of those who STICK IN THOSE DRIVE IN lines, cost?