On November 12, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Ohio teamed up with BGSU Firelands to distribute Thanksgiving meals to more than 400 Erie County households. The organization, a non-profit that also serves Crawford, Huron and Lorain counties, set a goal to deliver 3,850 food packages this year.
Second Harvest began its annual mobile distribution of Thanksgiving meals during the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing feedback from families who expressed that holiday meals were important to them. The effort has expanded every year.
“The physical act, especially during the pandemic, of being together with family and celebrating in ways that are traditional to them – that was really meaningful, so we’ve continued that,” says Julie Chase-Morefield, president and CEO of Second Harvest. “All things being equal, we have the funding, and our hope is that we can keep doing it because it means so much to our community.”
For non-profits like Second Harvest and the communities they serve, food insecurity is a year-round issue. According to Feeding America, a national hunger relief organization, Erie County’s population had a food insecurity rate of 12 percent in 2021, the most recent year such data was compiled. That number fell ahead of the overall rate of 10 percent nationally and was slightly higher than the 11-percent figure for all of Ohio, according to Feeding America data.
The World Health Organization has deemed “food insecurity” as the lack of “regular access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life.” It can come about because of the unavailability of food or the lack of resources to obtain it, and it can be experienced at different levels.
With the holiday season, perhaps, comes a heightened awareness of the issue among the general population, but family gatherings aside, this time of year also presents heightened challenges to those who face food insecurity, Chase-Morefield said.
“Why the holidays?” she says. “It’s not just that people are thinking about it. There are a lot of bills and things that happen at this time of year. There are just a lot of increased costs that happen going into the winter months that push people, many times, into food pantries.”
Families have children whose cold-weather apparel from previous years no longer fits them, and suddenly, that’s a need. Heating bills arrive, and that’s a need. January is a month during which rental rates are commonly hiked, and, quite suddenly, housing budgets can shift. That can become a need.
Earlier this year, the Ohio Association of Food Banks, of which Chase-Morefield is the board chair, released results of a study that illustrates the choices Ohioans who face food insecurity are forced to make. The study paints a sobering picture. Among the findings:
- More than two-thirds (65%) of Ohio Food Banks neighbor households reported that adults in the household skipped meals over a year’s time because they did not have enough food
- Of that group, more than a third (35%) reported doing so every month or almost every month over the past year.
- Ninety percent of respondents, when asked if they expected to seek help from food banks in the next 12 months, replied that they would seek help as often or more often than in the previous 12 months.
- About 73% said they would face choices between food and transportation, and 65% said they would have to choose between food and utilities.
Keep in mind that those are statistics for all Ohio food-bank participants, and Erie County households tend to be food-bank participants at a slightly higher rate than the statewide norm. That might seem counterintuitive, given the number of area food sources, including farms that partner with food banks and like-minded aid providers.
“Food insecurity is a symptom of a much larger issue,” Chase-Morefield says. “We’re meeting the immediate need for food, but the reason that someone ended up there, at a food pantry, is because so many other things happened before they got there.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in Erie County was $65,171 in 2022, the latest such data was compiled. For context, the median household income in 2019 was $54,226, meaning that even accounting for the pandemic, median household incomes in Erie County went up.
Meanwhile, inflation has done a number on food prices, which, at best, are tracking evenly with wage growth. It can make it difficult to make ends meet.
“Unfortunately,” Chase-Morefield says, “food is usually the easiest thing that somebody can give up.”
That choice can have immense repercussions throughout a region, says Sarah Kaya, a social worker at Sandusky High School, who has taken particular notice of how food insecurity affects the students of the Sandusky school district, their families, and, by extension, the whole Greater Sandusky area.
“I think that it can impact all areas of functioning: work, school, home,” Kaya says. “It’s unfortunate. There are a number of families who unfortunately have to decide between ‘Am I going to pay electric, gas, all the food we’re going to need for the month, or put gas in the car so I can get to work?’ Balancing that money at the end of the month is just really hard.”
Sandusky City Schools provides breakfast and lunch to all students during the school year. Kaya, like Chase-Morefield, is quick to point out that when school is out – summers, holiday breaks – there’s a segment of the food-insecure population that is at risk of being underserved. Added to that is another especially vulnerable group: seniors. That creates another seasonal burden on top of what is a 12-month need for assistance.
For the public who wants to help the cause, Chase-Morefield says the most-needed assistance is for volunteers. There can’t seem to be enough hands on board.
“Our food programs need volunteers,” she says. “The volunteers who are running food programs are older; they’re in their 70s, they’re in their 80s, and they need more volunteers to come and to help and to be part of it. I would say we would welcome anybody who reaches out to us, try to connect them with someone who’s local to their area.”
As for those who might need assistance with food insecurity, she recommends Freshtrak.com as a straightforward resource that includes the availability of a comprehensive set of programs. In Erie and Huron Counties, Second Harvest also offers assistance with SNAP applications, which can be accessed via phone at (440) 960-2265, extension 346.