Hunger in America 2010 Local Report Prepared for The Food Gatherers Food Bank

This report presents information on the clients and agencies served by The Food Gatherers Food Bank. The information is drawn from a national study, Hunger in America 2010, conducted in 2009 for Feeding America (FA) (formerly America's Second Harvest), the nation's largest organization of emergency food providers. The national study is based on completed inperson interviews with more than 62,000 clients served by the FA national network, as well as on completed questionnaires from more than 37,000 FA agencies. The study summarized below focuses on emergency food providers and their clients who are supplied with food by food banks in the FA network. Key Findings:

• The FA system served by The Food Gatherers Food Bank provides emergency food for an estimated 43,900 different people annually.
• 32% of the members of households served by The Food Gatherers Food Bank are children under 18 years old (Table 5.3.2).
• 26% of households include at least one employed adult (Table 5.7.1).
• Among households with children, 72% are food insecure and 39% are food insecure with very low food security (Table 6.1.1.1).
• 39% of clients served by The Food Gatherers Food Bank report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel (Table 6.5.1).
• 24% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care (Table 6.5.1).
• 24% of households served by The Food Gatherers Food Bank report having at least one household member in poor health (Table 8.1.1)
• The Food Gatherers Food Bank included approximately 75 agencies at the administration of this survey, of which 73 have responded to the agency survey. Of the responding agencies, 59 had at least one food pantry, soup kitchen, or shelter.
• 48% of pantries, 50% of kitchens, and 25% of shelters are run by faith-based agencies affiliated with churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious organizations (Table 10.6.1).
• Among programs that existed in 2006, 92% of pantries, 80% of kitchens, and 62% of shelters of The Food Gatherers Food Bank reported that there had been an increase since 2006 in the number of clients who come to their emergency food program sites (Table 10.8.1).
• Food banks are by far the single most important source of food for agencies with emergency food providers, accounting for 88% of the food distributed by pantries, 60% of the food distributed by kitchens, and 52% of the food distributed by shelters (Table 13.1.1).
• As many as 91% of pantries, 73% of kitchens, and 75% of shelters in The Food Gatherers Food Bank use volunteers (Table 13.2.1).