‘The outlook is really grim’: Local food banks in dire need of donations

Food banks in South Florida are noticing a decline in donations, forcing some to cut back on what they can provide. WPBF 25 News stopped by Boca Helping Hands Tuesday to meet Bill Harper, the senior director of operations, and learned the warehouse shelves are scarce compared to the years prior. “We are down 40% in donations from this time last year. So, we had 1.4 million pounds of food come in January through March last year, and now we’re down to like 800,000 pounds of food in the same time period,” Harper said. The shelves with items like canned foods are especially bare and Harper said it’s impacting how many people they can help. “Our core mission is helping families in need and feeding them, and right now, it’s hard to feed them when you’ve got shelves that look like this,” he said.Haper said they’ve had to start cutting back on how much food they can put in a bag. In the past, he said one bag of food could likely feed a family of four for roughly six days, however the current size would probably last them half that. “The demand is not going away, so we still have families coming to us six days a week here, plus we have four mobile pantries throughout Palm Beach County, and they’re coming looking for help, and unfortunately, we’re not able to give them as much food as we used to or that we would like to,” Harper explained. He said the difference in the amount of food is about 15 pounds. “Last year at this time, we were giving about 45 to 47 pounds of food with dry goods and with frozen meat and produce, that came to about 45 to 47 pounds,” Harper said. “Right now, we’re only able to produce about maybe 30 pounds worth of groceries.”Harper said the demand for food assistance started building when inflation went up in 2022 and has only grown since. “In 2023, it spiked, and it stayed that way, so it hasn’t gone down,” Harper told WPBF. Harper said before inflation got to where it is, the majority of the people they served were unemployed or facing hardship that impacted their ability to purchase food. However, with the price of groceries still rising, he said they’ve noticed a shift in the demographic. “Now we’re helping families who are employed, they’re just not able to make enough money in order to pay their rent, their fuel costs, their insurances, utility bills and put food on the table for their family,” he said. The U.S. Agriculture Department announced in March that they would be ending two programs that provided money for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farmers and producers. One of those programs that was terminated was called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA). It used non-competitive cooperative agreements to provide funding for state, tribal and territorial governments and served feeding programs, including food banks and organizations that reach underserved communities. “That’s one of the reasons, one of the main reasons why we are 150,000 pounds short this year on fresh produce in the first quarter than we were last year. It was because of that grant being paused. Now they can’t go out and purchase that food, and we’re not getting the donations,” Harper said. With President Donald Trump’s new tariffs, prices for everyday items are expected to increase. Harper fears that will only make their problems worse. Harper told WPBF his heart breaks seeing their shelves in the state they’re in and worries about the future. “It’s heartbreaking. Doing this for as long as I have, we have had ebbs and flows in the past, however we always seem to have a little bit of a pretty good outlook on where the economy was going. Right now, there’s so much uncertainty so with the heartbreak that I have, I don’t necessarily have a lot of faith that it’s going to get better in the short term. So the outlook is really grim,” he said. The problem is felt across South FloridaWPBF spoke with two other local food banks who said they are also seeing a similar problem. Jamie Kendall, the CEO of Palm Beach County Food Bank, said they’ve noticed a record-high demand for food assistance in Palm Beach County.”That goes all over the state of Florida, all over the country, but we are feeling it right here at home, and we have some diminished resources right now. So we are doing our best to keep our head above water and make sure that we meet the demand of the folks that need food assistance,” Kendall said. She said inflation and what could come as a result of changes to tariffs are a large concern of theirs.”We’re all facing it every time we go to the grocery stores ourselves. So imagine having limited resources and really worrying about every dollar that you have to spend for your food budget,” she said. Kendall said the rising cost of food is hitting the senior community hard, too. “They are struggling. They are living on limited incomes, retirement income, social security, all of those things. And they are having a hard time keeping food on the table with the rising housing costs, medication, health care. These are some really challenging times,” she said. With the lack of donations, the food bank has started doing something that wasn’t as common before. “We end up having to purchase quite a bit of food to make ends meet. That’s newer for food banking,” Kendall said. Kendall said while Palm Beach County is known to be an affluent area, that doesn’t mean people don’t struggle and need help.”There are so many people that struggle day-to-day and these are our neighbors. These are people that your children go to school with. These are the people that you might see working in some of the retail establishments that you go to. It’s real. And we as a community need to step up to the plate and make sure that nobody goes to bed hungry,” she said. Over on the Treasure Coast, Judith Cruz, the CEO of the Treasure Coast Food Bank, said they’ve also felt the impacts of inflation and cuts to program assistance.”With the overall costs of everything, inflation going up, there’s been a significant reduction, not only in food donations, but also in monetary donations. We have larger gifts, but there’s still a gap,” Cruz said.She said they’re searching for ways to bridge that gap. “Food donations in particular have been hit because manufacturers and distributors and the typical entities that we would normally receive excess food from, they’re struggling as well,” Cruz added. Cruz said the LFPA program ending will impact what the food bank is able to provide. “I just had some conversations internally with my program’s team. We’re not going to have the luxury of having the varieties that we’ve had over the last two or three years, especially since COVID,” she said. She said that means going back to the basic pantry items.”We’re going to have to go back to staple items that you would normally have maybe in a basic pantry when it comes to shelf-stable and then the varieties of produce that we were able to bring in with these extra federal dollars, we’re not going to be able to do,” Cruz added. Cruz also explained how they’re going to need to get creative to find ways to continue to support the agencies they partner with. “We have 300 agency partners on the Treasure Coast, but also our programs and the folks, the neighbors that we work with each day that through no fault of their own, are in this situation,” she told WPBF. Cruz said this shouldn’t be a political issue that warrants two separate sides, instead she feels it’s a community issue where people should work together to find a solution.”There isn’t a magic charity that can make up the difference for these federal programs. There isn’t enough donor dollars available to fill that gap. So having our federal legislators work together and finding solutions and really looking at the programs and understanding that these are our resources that are needed, and community livelihood depends on that is where we all need to come together,” she said. Lastly, Cruz said she hopes people will put their political views aside and help where they can.”We all need to really put our political interests to the side when it comes to topics like this and really focus on the needs of the community and the best interests of our community,” Cruz said. How people can helpFor those who are able to help and have the means to do so, all three food banks take both food and financial donations to help support their mission. To support the Palm Beach County Food Bank, people can visit its website or stop by its drop-off location at 701 Boutwell Road, Suite A2, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33461.To support the Boca Helping Hands food bank, people can donate food at the main building located at 1500 NW 1st Ct Boca Raton, FL 33432. For a list of other ways to support the food bank, people can visit its website. Harper said they are in need of canned goods, cereal and similar pantry items.To support the Treasure Coast Food Bank, people can stop by any of its drop-off sites listed on its website or by visiting its main location at 401 Angle Road Fort Pierce, FL 34947. People can also find alternative ways to donate by visiting its website.Top Headlines:Cold front on the way to South Florida. 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