The year of COVID: A decade of progress disappeared overnight | Opinion – NJ.com

NOTE: On the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 in New Jersey, we will publish several opinion pieces about our experiences over the past year. Today, the food bank administrator writes about how hunger grew during the pandemic.

By Carlos M. Rodriguez

Although too many neighbors were still struggling with hunger at the start of 2020, food insecurity had actually been shrinking for years, in New Jersey and nationwide. Then, COVID-19 struck in March and I knew that would change as businesses and schools were shuttered.

With 40% of adults already lacking enough savings to cover an unexpected $400 expense, I worried that food banks and pantries would see an influx of parents forced to skip meals, children lacking nutrition, and hungry seniors afraid to leave their homes. This fear came true instantaneously. Nearly a decade of progress in the fight against hunger was wiped out overnight as layoffs and reduced work hours made more of our neighbors than ever before unsure of where their next meals would come from.

As the state’s largest anti-hunger organization, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey (CFBNJ), with our network of 1,000 community partners, had to quickly mobilize to provide continued service to those already struggling while also accounting for a new surge in need.

About four in 10 people visiting food banks nationwide were asking for help for the first time – people who just days before had stable jobs and may even have been CFBNJ supporters. Even people in affluent towns and those whom you would least expect to be hungry needed help. Those working in the service and hospitality industries were especially hit hard. Atlantic City was one of the hardest-hit areas in the country.

Adding to the misery, panic buying and increased competition in the supply chain drove food donations from supermarkets down 50% and food prices up 20%, making it harder for us to procure larger quantities of food faster. Then, in April, unemployment in New Jersey reached a historic high at 15.3%.

With many pantries also closed to avoid exposure to COVID-19, CFBNJ hosted its first large-scale, contactless, drive-through distribution at Essex County Branch Brook Park to provide over 2,000 families with nutritious food. It was there that I first saw the impact that this crisis was having on families. As children sat strapped into their car seats for hours waiting with weary parents, I thought of my own two boys and how I would’ve felt if I couldn’t provide for them. I met a college sophomore who lost her job, and I remembered my own days as a working student. She was with her mom and brother, who had also been laid off. They sought food assistance together, their savings accounts empty.

Having devoted decades of my life to ensuring access to critical resources for those in need, I am no stranger to emergency response. When the towers fell on 9/11, I was at FoodChange in New York City, and when Superstorm Sandy ravaged New Jersey’s shores, I was the executive director at Fulfill (formerly the Food Bank of Monmouth & Ocean Counties).

I have seen firsthand the vulnerability of those whose homes have been destroyed, who have lost their livelihoods, and who have suffered greatly in the turmoil of life-changing crises. But that day at Branch Brook Park, I realized that I had never experienced anything to the scale of this pandemic before.

The elevated need for food assistance persisted through the summer and fall. In September, CFBNJ reported that New Jersey was projected to face a 56% increase in food insecurity. This expectation became reality in the months that followed as we braced for a second wave of COVID-19. To respond to the need, we nearly doubled the amount of food on hand with the help of increased state funding, which helped provide 10 million additional meals.

Today, more than 1.2 million New Jerseyans are food insecure, including nearly 400,000 children. New Jersey’s African American and Hispanic communities have been disproportionately impacted, having been more than twice as likely as white families to face hunger even before the pandemic.

Since that first pandemic food drive in Newark, we’ve hosted 40 similar events in 12 different counties. At each event, we served between 2,000 and 2,500 households waiting on lines that were seemingly endless — at least 1-2 miles long at any given time. People arrived as early as 6 a.m. to wait for them to start.

So, how do we fight hunger as we forge ahead through the recovery phase of the pandemic? We do it as we have all along, together and comprehensively. Working with community partners like the Bergen County Food Security Task Force and county officials, CFBNJ provided food for 78 million meals from March through January, a close to 60% increase over our largest-ever full year of distribution.

We’ve also witnessed incredible generosity, as new partnerships have emerged and communities have been galvanized to do all that they can for struggling residents.

The pandemic has required us to be resourceful locally, but also at the state and federal levels, working to affect policy change for vulnerable families. The Community Food Bank has championed enhanced unemployment benefits, the expansion of SNAP, and other measures that have made a positive difference. We and our community partners have lifted the voices of our neighbors to our elected officials and then helped them access financial assistance from the resulting policies. This is the power of collaboration and looking at the problem of hunger holistically.

This past year, the pandemic has been incredibly hard, and though vaccines are now being administered, we have not seen the need slow. People have taken out loans, spent their savings, and some are still unemployed. We expect that the food insecurity crisis will far outlast the pandemic.

So, together (but six feet apart) with all sectors of society, we must continually adapt with comprehensive policies, strong safety nets, and continued generosity to be there for those who still need our help.

Carlos M. Rodriguez is the president and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

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