CENTRE COUNTY, Pa (WJAC) — Food banks and similar resources continue to see an increased demand and higher prices.
In Pennsylvania, state funding, totaling millions of dollars, is earmarked for food assistance programs alone.
“We are continuing to see an escalation in the number of people who are food insecure.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding says that even with the added financial assistance, the need has increased among those going hungry.
Last year, with cutbacks in federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the state added five million dollars.
Officials say the ongoing changes in SNAP eligibility requirements is prompting more developments.
“Our distribution we do here in Philipsburg has gone up. It’s probably gone up maybe 50 to 65 families; we are seeing more people calling, running out of food.”
Also impacting food banks is a change many of us see when grocery shopping — higher prices.
“I’ll give ya a real good example. One of the items we use for the backpack program just went up 13 cents each. To the average person,13 cents does not mean that much, but when you are buying two thousand and more, that adds up very quickly.”
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Two thousand, that is the number of school backpacks that the Centre County YMCA’s anti-hunger program distributes in a week.