Federal cuts to the food stamp program in November have driven more people to food shelves and meals sites, and that has strained the capacity of the Vermont Foodbank to keep up, according to CEO John Sayles.
The Foodbank announced Thursday that it is $1 million short of its end-of-the-year fundraising target. Getting that money is critical to meeting that growing demand, Sayles said.
The Foodbank, which distributes food to roughly 280 sites throughout the state, will have supplied nearly seven million meals’ worth by the end of this year. It has plans to provide several hundred thousand above that next year.
But it has an operating budget of $6.5 million, and it depends on individuals and foundations to contribute roughly 70 percent of that.
“If we don’t make it, we have to do what every nonprofit business would do and look at ways to reduce costs,” Sayles said. “But it means we are not able to provide the service to our Vermont neighbors that we want to be providing.”
Beginning in 2009, the recession led more people to rely on food shelves and meal sites. In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene caused another spike. And most recently, the termination in November of stimulus funds that had boosted food stamp benefits since 2009, ushered more people into what Sayles describes as the “safety net for the safety net.”
3SquaresVT, the state’s federally funded food stamp program, serves roughly 100,000 Vermonters a year. The November cut meant that the average benefit for a family of four went down by $36 a month.
Sayles described the Foodbank as the “backstop” to the 3Squares program.
“Almost immediately we started hearing from food shelves and meal sites about more people coming in and coming in more frequently,” Sayles said. “The [food stamp] benefits are not enough to supplement a family’s food income for the entire month.” Hence, the volume of people visiting these sites starts to rise during the second and third weeks of the month.
Sayles expects pressure on the Foodbank to grow once Congress passes the Farm Bill. The legislation is currently in a conference committee where lawmakers, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., are trying to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Both, however, contain sizeable cuts to food stamp funding.
The Foodbank relies heavily on donated food — it’s an $18 million operation if the value of the donated food is included in the calculation. It’s seeing a squeeze there, too, largely because Shaw’s supermarket, a major donor, dropped out of the program in October. Sayles said the void is yet to be filled — Shaw’s contributed 18 percent of the Foodbank’s donated food.
The Foodbank, like other nonprofits, relies on a rush of donations from people contributing before the close of the tax year. Two-thirds of its donations arrive between October and December, according to a press release.