Throughout the pandemic, Feeding America’s partnerships have been critical in ensuring that food banks can get food out the door and into the hands of the community safely and efficiently.
The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Opened the Door to New Partnership Opportunities Feeding America sees an important opportunity for food banks to partner with state and local public health agencies and other cross-sector partners to address food and nutrition insecurity broadly as well as to reduce disparities. Higher rates of food insecurity exist in Black, Latino, and Native American communities – which were also seen to be hit hardest by COVID-19 and have higher rates of chronic diseases. Many of the people who have fallen into food insecurity are experiencing it for the first time in their lives, as our food pantry partners across the country report that 35% or more of the people they’re serving today had never received charitable food prior to the pandemic.įeeding America and its network of 200 food banks observed, as did many organizations across the country, the significant disparate impact that COVID-19 had on communities of color due to pre-existing health and economic disparities facing these communities.
In fact, food banks in the Feeding America network distributed 6.1 billion meals to individuals and families during this pandemic, an increase of 43% from 2019. The job loss in communities as businesses had to shut down or reduce capacity has left many families across the country relying on food banks. Based on Feeding America’s food insecurity projections released in March, it is anticipated that 42 million people may experience food insecurity this year-up from 35 million pre-pandemic. The need for food and nutritional assistance is growing.
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