BALTIMORE, Md. — The food line at the Baltimore Dream Center at MIX Church in East Baltimore is where hunger is met by hope for more than 300 families each week.
“We had like a grandmother who had her grandkids. She lost her son and they had absolutely nothing,” said Danielle Darby, “She walked from West North Avenue. That’s at least a 45 minutes to hour walk just to get a box of food.”
Food that comes from the Maryland Food Bank.
With SNAP benefits returning to pre-pandemic levels, the average benefit has dropped by $82 each month.
That’s an estimated 50 meals per family.
Food Bank President and CEO Carmen Del Guercio says inflation is also taking its toll on both the hungry and those who are trying to feed them.
“Obviously, people are having a hard time making ends meet, but it’s causing a problem for us as well,” said Del Guercio, “As I said earlier, we buy 25 million pounds of food now versus 12. We’re paying 88 cents a pound. We were paying about 44 cents a pound prior to the pandemic so that’s the impact. If you do the math, it’s something 10 or 12 million dollars in sheer costs on our organization.”
Despite its best efforts, the Food Bank will never be able to meet all of the needs of the hungry, and to that end, it’s lobbying for some help.
Whether it’s enhanced child tax credits or more in-school and after-school meals, the push is for additional ways to attack childhood poverty where so often, our most vulnerable citizens are struggling to survive.
“We’ve had people just start crying and say, ‘I didn’t know what I was going to do. They told us you have free food,” because they also see the signs,” said Darby, “and they got a bag of food for a week that helped them at least about a week.”
