Good Shepherd Food Bank

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF GOOD SHEPHERD FOOD BANK

Written by Erin Fogg, Vice President of Development and Communications

LOOK AROUND YOU. On the school bus up ahead, a child is heading home hungry to find an empty cupboard. In the supermarket, there’s a parent whose grocery budget will run out before the end of the month. In the pharmacy line, there’s a senior on a fixed income cutting back on their prescriptions so they can buy food. Down the street, a neighbor was just laid off and is wondering how they’ll afford food after the rent and car payments are made.

We never imagined the devastating impacts of COVID-19. Rates of hunger In the last year, many food soared as the pantries and meal sites across pandemic took the state reported increased hold and today visits from families who had remain above never used the charitable food network before. pre-pandemLEFT: Sumner Food Pantry ic levels. More ABOVE: Gray Community Mainers visited Food Pantry a food pantry for the first time than ever before. Good Shepherd Food Bank is grateful that our community partners, including the Harold Alfond Foundation, responded to the need and supported their neighbors during a year like no other. Working with our network of over 500 partner agencies, including food pantries, meal sites, shelters, health care facilities, and schools, the Food Bank was able to meet the needs of Mainers who were experiencing hunger.

In April 2020, the Harold Alfond Foundation awarded Good Shepherd Food Bank, Maine’s largest hunger-relief organization, a $1 million grant to support our statewide emergency food response in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

“The Foundation’s gift could not have come at a better time,” stated Kristen Miale, president of Good Shepherd Food Bank. “The impacts of COVID-19

Maine ranks 5th in the nation for very low food security rates, which is a more severe range of food insecurity that involves reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns. More than 31,000 households in Maine fall into this category. ABOVE: Good Shepherd Food Bank

created a perfect storm of challenges for the Food Bank and our community partners. Food supply was down, our operational processes were upended by social distancing, and the need grew quickly as Mainers faced unemployment, school closures, and other challenges.”

Before the pandemic, Maine had one of the highest rates of food insecurity in the nation, and the highest in New England, with 167,000 Mainers relying on the Food Bank and our network of partners. Today, that number approaches 182,000, at least 50,000 of whom are children. No community in our state is unaffected.

Thanks to the Harold Alfond Foundation grant and other generous supporters, the Food Bank significantly increased its distribution of food after the onset of COVID. The Food Bank distributed 28% more meals through its statewide network of partner agencies in the first 12 months of COVID compared to the prior 12 months.

“One hundred percent of the Harold Alfond Foundation grant was deployed across the state in the form of food and emergency funds for our partner hunger-relief agencies, helping local food pantries, meal sites, and schools expand their food distribution capacity. We are so grateful for the Foundation’s foresight and generosity, especially at the very beginning of this unprecedented pandemic,” said Miale.

At the onset of the pandemic, when consumers were stocking up on supplies and eating at home instead of dining out, the Food Bank saw retail donations diminish substantially and had to purchase nutritious shelf-stable food at wholesale prices to ensure supply was available to meet the increased need. Crops like potatoes and apples were also purchased from Maine farmers.

While all of the food was supplied to food pantries and other hunger-relief partners at no cost, Good Shepherd Food Bank realized that its community partners needed more support. With the help of the Harold Alfond Foundation, the Food Bank provided grants to all our partner agencies to help cover increased costs for items such as cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment, food packaging, traffic control equipment, passive cooling equipment, and additional food to supplement what we were able to provide.

“Based on survey results, we heard that our partners were experiencing increased expenses. These community organizations have a long road ahead as Maine continues to recover from this crisis, and the generous grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation helped them continue to meet the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors. We have been buoyed by the incredible generosity of our philanthropic supporters, including this most generous grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation,” continued Miale.

“Mainers are helping Mainers. All of us are working together — that’s how we’ll make it through this.”