Food Banks Work with USDA on Tornado Relief

Food banks traditionally have operated under the premise of providing temporary food assistance to low-income and working poor families. The economic crisis, which started in 2007, caused a significant increase in families and individuals seeking food assistance from job loss and foreclosure. Food pantries served by Harvesters, the Kansas City area food bank, saw a 40% increase in food distribution.

This dire situation has evolved into a chronic condition with as much as 25% of people in communities seeking food assistance from various sources like pantries, soup kitchens, and Food Stamps/SNAP benefits. The economic crisis has shifted the need from extremely poor to working poor people.

If a chronic condition of hunger in the U.S. is not enough to convince people to change their perception of the growing need for food assistance, then a devastating tornado season may help people understand the need for government assistance.

A recent account by a USDA public relations worker shared how public institutions like USDA work with private, non-profit food banks near disaster areas to provide food assistance.
TEFAP and USDA Foods are a big help to food banks and other organizations that play an integral role in disaster recovery. The Northern Alabama Food Bank alone has already distributed just over 58,000 pounds of their existing USDA Foods to disaster congregate feeding sites across the northern part of the state.

The food bank director at one location in West Alabama became visibly emotional when talking to Arnette about all that USDA Foods do for the food banks. In Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., a cafeteria manager explained that her school, which had been set up as a Red Cross shelter and congregate feeding site for the surrounding area, had used USDA Foods from their existing USDA Food Schools/Child Nutrition Program to feed disaster victims a hot meal.
What's troubling is that Jasper County, where Joplin resides, already had a "very high" food uncertainty and poverty level, but without an adequate response from either public or private food assistance outlets, as measured by the 2010 Missouri Hunger Atlas (33 pages, Adobe PDF format).

The small food bank in southwest Missouri was already underequipped to handle the disaster, which is why Harvesters, a food bank located in Kansas City 100 miles north of Joplin, is planning to receive as many as 30 truckloads of food to distribute for disaster relief.

The tornado may very well increase the level of poverty in this area of Missouri, but one homeless group from Kentucky showed how poor people can support each other (see video), along with assistance from public and non-profit sources.

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