Decibel

How Is This Local Food Bank Fighting Against High Food Costs And Less Donations?

Clip | 5m 36sVideo has Closed Captions

Families are struggling with food costs. So are the food banks they’re going to for help.

Aired 08/15/2024

Decibel

How Is This Local Food Bank Fighting Against High Food Costs And Less Donations?

Clip | 5m 36sVideo has Closed Captions

Families are struggling with food costs. So are the food banks they’re going to for help.

When families are dealing with food costs, they often turn to food banks to fill in nutritional gaps. But what happens when the only permanent food bank in the neighborhood is also struggling with high prices? See how Impact Now Dove Springs is fighting back against rising prices and summer donation drops.

Aired 08/15/2024

Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS

Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders

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[car pulling up] Whoo!

It's hot!

- Muy cansado.

- Si.

Whew!

Okay... [David] I ran everything as a volunteer for the first about eight years.

And, we just got really, really busy, So now this is actually my full time job.

I'm David Horning.

I am the executive director at Impact Now Dove Springs.

We're the only food distribution that that I know of in Dove Springs that's like a permanent location.

[paper bag opening] [upbeat jazz plays] I'm here six days a week.

on Tuesdays, in the mornings, we pack all of our shelf stable food.

So we're packing cans, we're packing rice, we're packing beans.

And we're usually packing about 220 bags.

On Fridays, we pick up about 7,000 pounds of food from the food bank.

Saturday morning, we get here at 7:45 we pack all of our fresh and frozen foods.

And then at 9 a.m., we open and start distributing.

[David] And it's how many families?

Four?

Three?

[man] Everybody's family... [somber music plays] For a long time, I would say probably 5 or 6 years, we were serving an average of 50 families a week.

Ten years later, we're serving about 220 families a week.

The rising cost of things has, I think, brought more and more families to us.

[David] Definitely hear lots of stories of families struggling to buy food.

And including myself.

During the summer, I'm spending $300 to $400 a week going and buying cans of food or things to supplement the stuff that we're not getting from the food bank.

During the summer, it's a lot harder.

Places are not donating as much.

So that is like the the money struggle.

To be able to buy the food that we're buying.

[curious marimba plays] [Sari] Folks think that the holidays are the busiest time of the year and the reality is, it's the summer.

My name is Sari Vatske, and I have the honor and privilege of being the president and CEO of the Central Texas Food Bank.

We do see less donations during the summer.

At the same time, most people go out of town and so retailers adjust their inventory levels for that.

Families face what we call as a triple threat, right?

Not only do they not have access to free reduced meals in school, but the cost of cooling a home increases.

The cost of daycare is a factor.

We're not insulated from the costs that other people are experiencing as well.

We're spending about $1.1 million a month to purchase food.

Which is just really, not sustainable.

Unfortunately we are anticipating this to continue.

Last year, we estimated about 178,000 people were food insecure.

And this year, we're anticipating about 208,000.

And that's just in Travis County alone.

[David] I feel like things are going to continue to increase.

I haven't seen it stop yet.

But, giving them food to help feed their families is kind of what keeps me going.

[upbeat hiphop plays] I do, I know who you are.

[David] The people that we serve are just normal people.

They have kids, they have families, they have loved ones.

They just want to eat and be healthy.

And a lot of them also want to give back.

[volunteer] I'm a great stacker.

[David] I would probably say 70% of the volunteers that we have were previously in line.

They realized that there was a need for support, so they offered to help.

They might still be getting food from us, but they wanted to do more themselves.

We love Dove Springs, and we we love helping people.

Morning Maria!

Doing okay, how are you...

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