BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — With many people still feeling the impacts of inflation, food insecurity is continuing to rise at an alarming rate.
“We’re seeing a lot more need right now largely due to inflation, rising food costs, rising cost of rent, people are simply struggling to put food on the table and pay for all their other needs," said Feeding Texas CEO Celia Cole. "and those rising costs are also making it harder for food banks to get food in and out the door so our request to the legislature to increase funding for the Surplus Ag Grant comes at a time when we really need to find more food donations in order to keep up with the requests for emergency food from our communities.”
Locally, the Brazos Valley Food Bank has been hit hard, and is seeing firsthand the impacts of the lack of funding.
“We have not been able to supply our partner agencies with what they need to feed the people that come to their doors, and that’s not what the food bank is about, we’re supposed to be able to do that," emphasized Brazos Valley Food Bank Executive Director Theresa Mangapora. "The food bank is very fortunate that we are able to distribute about 40% of all of the food every month is fresh produce. We weren’t able to do that the last couple of months because we’re running out of our Texas Department of Agriculture money.”
With food insecurity becoming a new reality, Texas food banks need a solution to keep operations running.
“We serve millions of Texans every year and the way we determine the level of need is the number of requests for food assistance an that number has gone up over 60% since prior to the pandemic,” said Cole.
If you'd like to donate to the Brazos Valley Food Bank to help the fight against hunger, you can visit their website here.