Every Tuesday morning, Eran Riggans visits the food pantry run by the Homeless Charity and Village on North Arlington Street in Akron. Located on a small plot of land outside the building, the pantry is crowded with patrons and volunteers who work nonstop to distribute boxes of food.
Ever since Riggans became homeless after losing his job last year, this has been his only source of food. “It’s a blessing for them to help this community,” he said. “Without them, we’d starve.”
Riggans is one of many Akron residents who were affected by the cut in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits earlier this year. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Congress expanded SNAP benefits to help relieve financial insecurity many Americans faced at the time. This March, the benefits were reduced to pre-COVID amounts, cutting as much as $95 per household.
When the assistance was cut, the number of families who rely on help from food pantries spiked.
Katie Carver Reed, vice president of the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank, expects 3 million visits to the bank’s various food relief programs this year. “That’s the most we’ve really had in our history, including COVID,” she said.
At the Peter Maurin Center on South Main Street in Akron, Director David Churbock sees firsthand how much traffic has increased at his food pantries since the cut. The agency’s two pantries, which distribute food twice a month, used to serve an average of 60 to 75 families in one day. “I can’t remember the last time we were under a hundred,” Churbock said.
The pantries are doing their best to keep up with the rising demand, but Reed said they also receive assistance from other agencies in the Akron area. For example, the Summit County Department of Job and Family Services helped the food bank communicate with families who use SNAP benefits about how they might receive assistance, Reed said.
In addition, the Akron Community Foundation in October gave $179,600 in grants to 22 food pantries across the city, targeting those in ZIP codes with the highest food insecurity rates.
For information on how to donate to food pantries, read more here.
These organizations also receive help from volunteers from all over Northeast Ohio. “The food bank just can’t operate without the support of the community,” Reed said. “It takes volunteers, it takes donors, it takes community partners to meet the needs of this community.”
Many of the pantries also expanded the ways in which they distribute food as a response to the crisis. The Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank recently added a drive-through food distribution service, and the Homeless Charity has other programs that provide hot meals, sack lunches, and toiletries.
“We’re out here in the community, in our outreach center, four days a week helping folks who are in need,” said Executive Director Lerryn Campbell.
“They have been a big blessing,” said Morty, who has been coming to the food pantry for more than a year. “Many people go out of their way to help us.”
The U.S. Senate passed an extension of the 2018 farm bill Nov. 15 as part of a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown, but no SNAP funding increase was included. Despite this, Reed remains hopeful that the benefits will be extended again. “Our Foodbank will join food banks across the country in advocating for a strong Farm Bill that invests in programs to provide nourishing food to millions of families every year,” she said.
In the meantime, food pantries offer another solution: Volunteer and donate to as many charities as possible. “If you’ve got a pantry full of non-perishable foods that you’re not using, get them out to a local pantry so they can be handed out to folks in need,” Campbell said.
Churbock also emphasized the importance of volunteering. “There is no shortage of worthwhile causes where people have the opportunity to do good works,” he said.
Editor’s note: The Akron Community Foundation is a financial supporter of Signal Akron.
