Local pantries bracing for longer government shutdown as food supplies dwindle | News

TEMPLE TERRACE — Brandi Dickens doesn’t spend too much time paying attention to politics. But lately, she can’t help it.

As Temple Terrace Elementary’s Community Resource Teacher, Dickens has seen her once-stocked pantry shelves of food grow barer. Federal gridlock and recent reductions in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) had increased the needs, and anxiety, of those in her school’s community that depend on her pantry.

And while there has been some good news, with partial restoration of some of the benefits, although how timely that will be remains to be seen, Dickens still worries.

The elementary school’s pantry, located at 124 Flotto Ave. and open every Monday from 1-2 p.m., has served between 150-250 households a month this school year. It recently received a generous donation from the food drive held at the Temple Terrace Fall Festival, but mostly relies heavily on donations from Feeding Tampa Bay. But as demand grows and supplies thin out, even major food banks are stretched thin.

“Our shelves are already bare, and we’ve been rationing what we have to make it last,” Dickens said.

The SNAP changes don’t affect school meal programs like free breakfast and lunch, but they’ve put extra strain on pantries like those at Temple Terrace Elementary and Greco Middle School, both community schools that offer food, housing assistance and mental health support.

At Greco, Community Resource Teacher Jay McNair oversees one of Hillsborough County’s larger school-based pantries, distributing about 4,000 pounds of food monthly.

But on the eve of the Nov. 1 SNAP cuts, recent shipments dwindled, with one consisting of only breakfast sausage and cucumbers.

Both schools receive food through a grant but do not get to choose what arrives.

McNair even had to close just before the initial SNAP reduction date because there wasn’t enough food left to give out.

But he took to social media, and the community responded. Within days, more than 500 pounds had been dropped off at the school, much of it anonymously.

“I was a little bit overwhelmed,” a grateful McNair said, adding that he had to enlist some volunteer students to help sort the food.

He estimates that the pantry serves 25-30 families a week, and he expects that number to grow. Visitors could come on Tuesdays and Fridays and choose what they wanted. He admits he was “kind of loose” about how much he let people take.

But now, with supplies tight, he must set limits. Families can come once a week, the meat will need to be rationed and he is resorting to pre-made boxes with 25 items in it that he expects to provide 3-5 meals for families.

“If you’re coming to a food pantry, you obviously need, food, right? That’s how I saw it, and I’m not going to question anybody about what they need,” he said. “But now, I have to do it a little bit differently and stretch what we have.”

He was hopeful last week’s Feeding Tampa Bay delivery, expected on Friday, would return to normal. When the pantry is flush with items, he often shares it with other pantries, like the United Methodist Church on Busch Boulevard.

But there is certainly a high demand at Greco, where McNair said 90 percent of the 800 students are on free or reduced lunch, “so I’m going to say a majority of that probably have SNAP benefits.”

He fears if the shutdown lingers, “it could get ugly.”

Across town, the St. Vincent de Paul Pantry, which distributes food every Saturday morning, is also feeling the pinch.

At the Nov. 4 Temple Terrace City Council meeting, volunteer Duane Zolnoski warned that the pantry, which was founded in the 1970s and has been a charitable mainstay in Temple Terrace, is on the verge of failing to deliver food to those who need it.

He said the larger food banks have significantly cut their contributions in anticipation of greater need all over, leaving St. Vincent de Paul “with far less.”

Zolnoski asked the council to consider providing a grant or organizing a food drive.

“Without additional help, we will be turning people away,” he said. “Some of the people in Temple Terrace will not be receiving food from us, and that would be a shame.”

After some debate, the council agreed to both. It voted to provide St. Vincent de Paul with a one-time $5,000 donation, which will come from the roughly $170,000 it recently received in lien collection fees from the previous owner of the Fountain Shoppes of Temple Terrace.

Zolnoski said that would last St. Vincent de Paul “a week or two.”

The council also agreed to organize a food drive to benefit local pantries.

Dickens said that other pantries, including St. Vincent de Paul, have been a great help in the past, but she understands there is only so much they can do in the current environment.

While Temple Terrace Elementary has received its fair share of community donations, there are more and more pantries that, like hers, are running low.

“I’m seeing messages of people dropping off everywhere,” she said. “So people are giving a lot more. But you don’t see it in the same quantity, because it’s being spread out among everybody.”

If the shutdown continues, and deliveries from Feeding Tampa Bay don’t return to normal and community donations don’t continue at current levels, both McNair and Dickens both say they may have to rethink how they distribute food, possibly even restricting it to families of students that attend their schools.

But Dickens promises that no matter what, at the very least, the schools will find a way to take care of their students.

“I’ve been teaching for over 25 years, and I can tell you, as a teacher, a child is not going to go hungry in class,” she said. “That’s not going to happen.”