PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) – Some food banks in Oregon are feeling the effects of the nationwide supply chain issues.
The Oregon Food Bank Warehouse in Northeast Portland serves the entire state. There, typically donations comes from restaurants, farmers and other food manufacturers but because of supply chain issues and labor shortages, fewer food donations are coming in.
“We are usually donated what is excess and right now with shortages there is not much excess so donations are really down,” Susanna Morgan, the CEO at Oregon Food Bank, said. The Oregon Food Bank served 860,000 people in 2019 and that number jumped up to 1.7 million in 2020. Morgan said they’re trying to fill the gap in other ways.
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“We are really lucky in that the community has been extremely generous to us in this pandemic time so we are able to fill those gaps either by purchasing food or by purchasing gift cards that we can give directly to families experiencing hunger to go purchase food for themselves,” she said. The federal government is also helping.
“They are purchasing food that goes into a USDA commodity stream which shows up here in truckloads of food for our families,” Morgan said. The Food Bank does still need help from the community. Morgan said the best way to help out is by donating money and you can do so here.
“We will turn that into food purchase and we can purchase by the truck load so we can purchase at a much better price than you can from the grocery store,” Morgan said.
You can also make food donations to your local food pantry and can find yours here.
“Please take that to your local food pantry as opposed to coming here.” She said they are also in need of volunteers, especially at the beginning of 2022.
“Everybody wants to donate their time in December let’s do it January instead,” she said. Morgan said the Food Bank will continue to do everything in its power to help those facing food insecurity but if the need increases like it did from 2019 to 2020, they could be in a tough spot.
“We’ve seen that number start to go down, not back to 2019 levels but start to go down and if that skyrockets again we are all going to be very, very challenged,” she said.
If you need help with food assistance you can find your nearest food pantry location here.
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