As traditional food bank volunteers age, finding enough workers to staff pantries is becoming a challenge

Food bank volunteers are often older.
(Photo by Katherine Emery, The Maine Monitor)

Over the past 20 years, the average age of food pantry volunteers has climbed, leading some volunteers to reduce their hours or stop volunteering due to health issues. Meanwhile, there aren't enough younger volunteers to fill their spots.

In rural states like Maine, where food insecurity is a consistent issue, the "nearly 600 hunger relief agencies that get free and low-cost food from Good Shepherd Food Bank rely on volunteers," reports Elaine Appleton Grant of The Maine Monitor. "This includes 250 food pantries as well as soup kitchens, senior centers, shelters, schools and youth programs."

Food banks thrive with a regularly scheduled staff of volunteers working planned shifts, but many younger generations are more likely to sign up for limited-time commitments. Grant explains, "Younger volunteers are increasingly seeking out what the Minnesota Alliance of Nonprofit Advancement calls 'event-based' volunteering — one-time efforts with no commitment to future shifts."

In many places, it's not that younger people don't want to volunteer, but they're often limited by working so many hours to pay their own bills. Grant writes, "Just 20% of millennials volunteer in Maine, half the rate of Gen Xers and baby boomers." Researcher Quixada Moore-Vissing told Grant, "I would categorize it as being an overwhelmed and overworked society."

Faced with a volunteer shortage in September, Second Harvest Heartland in Minnesota "had to delay the distribution of thousands of pounds of food," Grant reports. "As a result, food pantries in Minnesota and western Wisconsin got the food later than expected."

Food banks are already stretched thin, and changes to SNAP benefits are likely to leave some Americans hungry

Food banks have already been impacted by USDA cuts.
(Photo by Aaron Doucett, Unsplash)

With food prices continuing to climb higher than overall inflation, many Americans have turned to food banks to make ends meet. But food pantry organizers say they are already strapped by increasing needs and fear that when Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, changes start pinching people's budgets, pantries won't have enough food to meet the demand. 

Food bank shortages are likely to become more common for rural pantries because they rely more heavily on Department of Agriculture programs and have fewer private donors to lean on for assistance.

"Food banks across the country were already straining under rising demand. Now, they worry many more Americans will go hungry," reports Dan Frosch of The Wall Street Journal. "Some food banks and pantries are pushing for more state, local and private funding. Others are considering cutting back services and the amount of food they can distribute."

Food pantry leaders "say the SNAP reductions included in the new budget bill will strain resources by pushing more people whose benefits have either been cut or reduced toward pantries to get food," Frosch reports. "Republicans say changes to the SNAP program will ensure people receiving the benefits are working, as required."

Changes that have already gone into effect significantly shift age and work requirements to receive benefits. The new budget "expands work requirements for SNAP, raising the upper age limit for able-bodied adults from 54 to 64, meaning those people will typically have to work for 80 hours a month to qualify for food benefits," Frosch writes. Individuals caring for children 14-17 will now have to work to qualify for SNAP. 

Just as pandemic-era aid tapered off throughout the U.S., food inflation began to spike, which led to more people relying on food pantries. While most food banks were able to meet their community's needs, they now have to contend with cuts. Frosch explains, "Earlier this year, the Department of Agriculture canceled millions of pounds of shipments to food banks that were part of its emergency food-assistance program for low-income people." 

A USDA spokesperson told the Journal that regular food deliveries had continued, but "food banks say they are already feeling the impacts of federal cuts," Frosch adds. "For Sarah Aragón, the head of programming for Roadrunner Food Bank, New Mexico’s largest charitable food operation, that has meant losing more than seven million pounds of food she had been counting on."

Some pantries are planning to make cuts if needs overwhelm their supply, but others already run out of food sometimes. Aragón, from Roadrunner Food Bank, told Frosch, "When we have to tell people that we have no more left, the look on their faces when they walk away is like, ‘What am I going to do now?' I don’t have an answer.”