SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The rising costs of groceries and gas are putting more pressure on local food banks. One Springfield non-profit, Life360, said it’s struggling to balance the expenses of bulk food and fuel.
The Life360 Distribution Center on Division Street serves several school districts and feeds thousands of children.
“We work with school districts with a high free and reduced lunch rate,” said Jeremey Hahn, the executive president of Life360 Community Services. “As we qualify each school district, our focus is to feed every kid in that school. We don’t want to single kids out, so we feed them all. All across the state and into Arkansas we’re serving 25,000 kids daily. Right here in Springfield, we pack for about 3,000 kids in this building on East Division.”
Hahn said suppliers are having to raise prices for items they provide to children every day. To keep their partnership with organizations like the USDA, each packet of food has to include certain types of nutrients like grain and protein. Hahn said Life360 is having to look into alternatives to combat the lack of supply, but this doesn’t help the budget.
“If we have to do a substitution, then that would mean our price is much much higher than ever before,” said Hahn. “We have seen an incredible increase in the cost of the food we are purchasing. Last year in July, we were spending 30 to 35% of our total operations budget on food. Since January, each month we spent more than 60%.”
Hahn said the non-profit is trying to cut back on costs by changing processes, coming up with more efficient routes for vans, and use fewer vans to cut back on purchasing fuel.
The supply chain and inflation is also causing problems for any non-profit or business using food.
“It makes it difficult not just to people who are trying to provide aid to families but our restaurant owners the others who are in the food space are seeing costs skyrocket and seeing supply chains become more and more scarce,” said Hahn.
In order to keep consistent with the amount of food Life360 distributes for the rest of the year, Hahn said it will need to raise $2 million. There is a fundraising effort expected to kick off in April.
Hahn said if anyone would like to help Life360, the non-profit is always looking for volunteers.