KANSAS CITY, Kan. — One of the biggest impacts of inflation continues to be on the price of food.
Local non-profits and food pantries are doing what they can to meet the higher demands, but the cost is impacting their internal operations as well.
According to Cross-Lines Community Outreach, it went from serving 600 families a month to over a thousand.
More clients coming through their doors have meant more money coming out of its own pockets.
“Over the past year, we’ve had to increase our food budget 50%," said Susila Jones, executive director for the Cross-Lines Community Outreach. "So we’ve gone from spending about $60,000 a year to this year, we’re gonna spend over $220,000 a year."
This is the case for so many agencies across the Kansas City area.
According Stephen Davis, president and CEO of Harvesters, its network of more than 760 nonprofits reported seeing 20 to 30 percent more clients.
“Really what changed is, we had a lot of federal resources during the pandemic and we had a lot of financial resources during the pandemic that we were using to buy food to bring in,” Davis said. “Some of those resources we had of federal food and just the financial resources we had to procure food has really diminished.”
As of March 1, the maxing out of SNAP benefits have ended in both states now. It ended a year ago in Missouri and then in Kansas earlier this month.
This was one of the last federal programs that were put in place during the pandemic to help families.
“It’s hard to find all the things that I really need without having to pay a whole bunch of money to get it,” said Laura Watson, who shops at Cross-Lines food pantry. “Your gas bill goes up, your light bill goes up, even your rent goes up, but social security doesn’t change that much. So it’s a great help. I mean it’s absolutely a must.”
It has become an absolute must even for people who never needed food assistance before.
“The stores that I used to go to, I can’t hardly go to them anymore,” Dr. Tammy Counts said. “I am looking for other stores where there are other discounts so that I can get a little bit more bang for my buck.”
For Counts, she says inflation has not only affected her family budget, but what she can and cannot buy for her home economics classes.
“As a teacher, realizing that my students need a little bit more, I do teach cooking and meal preparation, so we try to do those types of things in my classrooms, so that they know how to manage food,” Counts said. “Without this, I think our community would be at an even bigger loss which affects every system that's in place.”
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