Food Bank Supplies Dwindle

Cookouts, buttery corn on the cob, juicy watermelon and ice cream. That's what makes summer mouthwatering for lots of us. But for less fortunate families,  summer is the hungry season. It's when food supplies dwindle because donations to food banks drop precipitously and demand increases. And shelves are already emptying out. As a result, CT Food Bank is issuing an SOS for donations to restock them. “Contrary to what many people may think, the highest demand for food is in the summer. More families will be turning to soup kitchens and food pantries for assistance because they don’t have enough money to buy the food they need for their children,” says CT Food Bank’s Chief Executive Officer Nancy L. Carrington. In Fairfield County, CT Food Bank supports families and organizations from its Fairfield warehouse. It supplies Stamford's Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County, which also serves programs in Norwalk.

Adding to summer's shortages, manufacturers and distributors scale back operations to accommodate employee vacations and limited productions.  With kids out of school for two and a half months, it's a time when families need even more food on hand. “A family with two children will have to come up with more than 200 extra meals during the summer vacation when they don’t have access to school meals—and that’s an extremely difficult situation to face for most low-income families,”Carrington says.

The number of people Connecticut Food Bank provides for is staggering. It serves 650 food-assistance programs, meaning, food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and low-income child and adult day programs in six of Connecticut’s eight counties, making it the state's largest centralized source of emergency food. Since its incorporation in 1982 as Connecticut's first regional food bank, it has distributed more than 200 million pounds of food to people in need.

Last year, CT Food Bank's summer food supply was buoyed by federal stimulus funds.  They made it possible to supplement food supplies with 14 extra tractor trailer loads of food for Connecticut. Those funds, however, were a one-time only event. “Unfortunately, the people who were hurting from the recession last year who were helped by the federal stimulus bill, are still hurting this year. They are still depending on us and our network of food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters for help," Carrington says.

So, though  we treasure our summer traditions, cookouts, picnics and relaxing outdoors, maybe it's time to begin another one: replenishing food pantry shelves. It's bound to make everything we already love about summer seem just a little sweeter.

Here's how to help:  CT Food Bank's Fairfield warehouse is located at 74 Linwood Avenue, Fairfield. Hours are: Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, visit its website. The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County is located at 461 Glenbrook Road‚ Stamford. Its hours are: Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information visit its website. Monetary donations can be made at the CT Food Bank's website.

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