Byron Ruby

Food banks have long provided charitable food aid to local food pantries and other frontline organizations serving people without enough to eat. Now, more of them are expanding beyond food to provide access to healthcare, financial coaching, job skills, and other support. The logic is simple. If people can attain jobs skills, financial resilience, and better economic success, they have a better chance of overcoming the circumstances that cause food insecurity in the first place.

Across the country, COVID-19 has put unusual and extraordinary strain on communities and social safety nets—and this applies equally to food banks. Feeding America, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to address food insecurity in the US, has seen demand across its 200 food banks surge by almost 50 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Simultaneously, like many other charitable organizations, it is being flooded with donations.

The COVID-19 crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time for Second Harvest Heartland, Minnesota’s largest food bank. When the virus first began to spread in the state, Second Harvest Heartland was weeks away from moving into a new warehouse in suburban Minneapolis. In anticipation of the move, the food bank had purposely drawn down its inventory, so there wouldn’t be as much to haul from one place to another. Demand exploded virtually overnight.