Food banks can't wait for people to come to them. That's why we're changing how we serve
COVID-19 has ripped through our communities, leaving much devastation. But in the carnage, innovation flourished.
These solutions changed how we work, how we order food and how we get our groceries. There have even been changes at local food banks, including ours.
As more and more people relied on food banks when businesses closed and workers were furloughed or just laid off, brick-and-mortar food banks stood at the ready with drive-up lines and contactless forms. But really, these efforts aren’t enough.
Even today, families and children across the Valley are increasingly experiencing food insecurity. This is where we need innovation.
Mobile efforts can help us respond quicker
As the head of our programs at Phoenix Rescue Mission, I’ve seen the impact that barriers like these can have on disadvantaged communities. I’ve seen children being set up for lifelong battles with chronic health issues because their bodies are starving.
The hardest part about this crisis is that it’s 100% preventable.
No longer are we waiting for families to come to us for help. We’re now going into their neighborhoods.
We’ve begun mobilizing our Hope for Hunger Food Bank by bringing mobile food pantries to the underserved regions of the Valley known as food deserts – where there’s a void of fresh food, produce and other essentials.
While traditional food banks will always be essential, they don’t offer the flexibility to respond to dire situations as quickly as mobile efforts, as the pandemic has amply shown.
It wasn’t until we started collecting data from our mobile pantries that we began to see the possibilities of investing in more mobile outreach.
We were missing minority, immigrant families
In 2019, I had the opportunity to join a yearlong research fellowship with Arizona State University’s Knowledge Exchange for Resilience. With a focus on food insecurity in Maricopa County, I, along with a team of researchers from the fellowship, set out to discover solutions for ending food insecurity in our Valley’s most vulnerable communities.
After nine months of collecting data collecting from nearly 10,000 individuals served at both our Hope for Hunger Food Bank and mobile food pantries, we found that minority and immigrant families are nearly 200% more likely to go to a mobile food pantry versus a brick-and-mortar pantry.
By removing barriers such as transportation difficulty and the cost of acquiring healthy foods, we are opening the door to a better future for the most vulnerable.
Sadly, this data told us that there was a significant portion of the population that previously had not been served. More importantly, it showed us exactly how we could expand food distribution to these highly vulnerable populations.
The data are clear: mobile food pantries could significantly reduce food insecurity in the Valley and improve the health and safety of underprivileged regions.
We're streamlining our efforts. Can you help?
These findings are encouraging because they give us a clear path forward and allow us to streamline our efforts. This will introduce more families to services aimed at ending their poverty, like family support resources, vocational development, job placement, emotional or mental health services and addiction recovery.
But our resources are limited, which is why I am asking community members like you help by collecting the needed food and supplies or donating online at phoenixrescuemission.org.
We need your help. Your neighbors need your help.
Let’s break down the barriers that prevent people from seeking the help they so desperately need. Together, we can get food and resources to our neighbors in need, and we will.
Nathan Smith is chief program officer for Phoenix Rescue Mission, including overseeing efforts to reduce crime, poverty and homelessness in targeted regions of metro Phoenix. Reach him at nathansmith@phxmission.org.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Food banks must go mobile if they truly want to feed the needy
