ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Many individuals and families face food insecurity, particularly around the holiday seasons, and the Kansas Food Bank will be working hard to help those people stay fed.
As Kansas Food Bank President and CEO Brian Walker tells it, there will be plenty of work to keep him and his staff busy this season.
“The Kansas Food Bank serves 85 counties in Kansas – we have a presence almost everywhere except for the northeast corner of the state. We have a facility in Wichita, and we opened up a new facility in Garden City in 2024 to help take care of Western Kansas,” Walker said. “What we do for holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, we supply food to a network of agency partners including food pantries, soup kitchens, rescue missions and other facilities that help with hunger relief for individuals and families, and we even have some partners in Liberal. We'll provide millions of pounds of food in the coming weeks to the agency partners we work with to help ensure individuals and families have food on the table and have nice holiday meals. Our corporate donors donate quite a bit, and we also get quite a few private donations as well to help ensure people have the food they need. We've been seeing an increased demand for assistance for the past few months now due to inflation and other circumstances and money just not stretching as far as before. We're currently working on finding some new agency partners, we do have a few applications on our desk from that area who would like to partner with us.”
Walker said there is typically an increase in requests for aid around the holidays, and he expects this year will be no exception.
“We do about 17 million lbs total of distribution during the year, and we typically see about a 40 percent increase in requests for aid in November and December, and I think we'll see around those numbers again especially because of what went on with the SNAP benefits for a few weeks and some other circumstances,” Walker said. “Plus, we've been seeing nice weather recently, but when it gets colder, that means people will have to turn their furnaces on, so they'll get some assistance for food if they're on a limited income. We've all felt the effects of inflation at the store when shopping, but when you're a senior citizen on a fixed income, that can be especially hard. Most people also don't visit the pantry every month, they pay a visit when they're especially in need. We also see quite a few people who come in who are dealing with some sort of medical issue and are having to choose between food and their medication and/or food and housing costs. To be sure we can help everyone who comes in, We've increased our purchasing, and we have great community support throughout the state from people who donate either food or money so we can do what we do. We've also been talking to community partners about the increased need for donated food so we can get that out to our agency partners. It truly takes a village to make this work, and I feel like we'll see a particularly big increase this year due to what's been going on with the economy and federal government and everything else.”
For those wanting to support the Kansas Food Bank’s mission, Walker said there are a few ways to do so.
“At the Kansas Food Bank, there are three big ways people can help – they can donate non-perishable food to their local food pantry, they can make a monetary donation so their food bank can buy the food they distribute to people in need, and people can also volunteer some time at their local food pantry and help out there,” Walker said. “The facility in Garden City isn't too far a drive from Liberal, so that's definitely an option to consider. We also could use some help just spreading the word about what we do – hunger is a 24/7/365 situation for some people, and we could use some help spreading the word about how we can help. And as much as we appreciate all the donations we get during the holiday season, we would like people to remember we're here before and after the holidays as well. A lot of people do much of their charitable giving around the holiday season, which I hope continues, because I know there are a lot of individuals and families concerned about where the economy is currently headed. At Thanksgiving, Cargill had a great match program, and those types of programs are a great way to help a lot by donating a little, so people should keep an eye out for those types of programs if they want to help that way.”
Overall, Walker said, he and his staff are ready to help anyone and everyone who needs it.
“People can also visit our Web site, kansasfoodsource.org, and if someone is experiencing food insecurity and needs to find a food pantry or some other type of assistance, they can visit that site and find that information,” Walker said. “We definitely expect to be busy this holiday season, and we'd love to get as many donations as possible to help as many people as possible. We're excited to see what we get and see the generosity of the people of the state.”
