TOPTON, Pa.- Helping Harvest Fresh food bank says it will be serving a record number of people this week.
“Pretty much every location has grown,” says Alyssa Messner, with Helping Harvest. “With it being such a desperate time, the need has grown pretty much everywhere.”
The Topton Mobile Market has been happening since the height of COVID. It’s just one of many distribution events Helping Harvest does each month.
“We try to take a look to see where the need is, to see where we would be able to expand services within Berks and Schuylkill County,” says Messner.
While the need for food has increased all over, it’s not just concentrated to the urban areas. The Brandywine Heights School District superintendent tells WFMZ that they’ve seen poverty double in this area over the last decade.
“That’s pretty significant for a small school in a rural community,” says Superintendent Andrew Potteiger.
“Our district is currently at about 45% on free and reduced lunch, so there is a large need, which is surprising to people because it’s a rural school and they think it’s not here,” says Michael Wagaman, Co-Founder of the Friends of Brandywine.
Potteiger says in addition to Helping Harvest, people in the community and surrounding areas have really stepped up to help address the food insecurity.
“We have organizations like ‘Friends of Brandywine’ that has stepped up. They donated $40,000 so that we were able to feed children over the summer,” says Potteiger. “We’re [also] doing a holiday meal collection with our student council, and that’s a schoolwide initiative where we’re collecting 60 boxes of meals that we’re going to give to our local food pantry here in town.”
“It’s an entire ecosystem between the volunteers, the agencies. Everyone is what makes it come together,” says Messner.