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."

Grassroots efforts give rural W. Va. residents a transportation solution

Monroe County residents ride the new MTA bus route to
Walmart. (Photo by T. Spencer, Mountain State Spotlight)

Residents in Monroe County, West Va., now can take a bus to school, work or doctor's appointments, thanks to the efforts of the county's transportation committee.

Tre Spencer reports in the Mountain State Spotlight that the committee negotiated a deal to get new bus routes from the Mountain Transit Authority.

Like many rural people across the U.S., Monroe County residents have struggled to get to work or care for themselves because of poor transportation options. Spencer explains, "Jeana Carr is the county’s Head Start director and has worked directly with families and parents since the late 1990s. She said most families either relied on one car or didn’t have one at all." Carr told Spencer she spent years listening to community assessment results that listed transportation as the number one need. 

Carr's hope for providing a county transportation plan gained traction when Beth Massey, the threat preparedness coordinator at the Monroe County Health Department, got on board, and the two women joined forces. Spencer reports, "Massey and Carr approached the county commission with their concerns, and the commission formed a transportation committee, appointing Massey to lead it."

Members of the transportation committee knew that to get state help, they would have to prove the community had a viable need. So they decided to deploy a solid, community research project that included help from a local grocery store, residents who needed transportation, and the county's 911 service.

Once research results were completed, "the committee approached the state’s public transit authority, the Division of Multimodal Transportation Facilities," Spencer adds. "State officials directed them to the Mountain Transit Authority. . . . and Tim Thomas, MTA’s general manager, had been looking to expand to Monroe County for a while."

The committee grappled with how federal and state transportation funding works with additional community funds. "With the federal grant requiring a 50% match, the county commission put up $30,000, and MTA is working to put up the remaining funding to expand to more routes and days," Spencer reports. "By early March, buses were carrying riders across the county three days a week."

Tre Spencer

To read the detailed account of Monroe County's grassroots busing success story, Spencer's full story is here. 

Too few volunteer firefighters is an acute crisis in rural places; The 'antiquated model' must change

Fire crews are a rural area's 'first line of defense' for most
emergencies. (Photo by Peter Crabtree, The Daily Yonder)

Rural fire departments have struggled to get adequate funding, volunteers, and employees, and the problem is getting worse. "A slow but steady decline in volunteers is catching up with America's small-town and rural fire departments," reports Caitlin Randall of The Daily Yonder. "Some solutions – like better funding, a different volunteer structure, and more publicity – aren't simple. And others – like the need for more jobs to retain young people – are beyond fire departments' control."

Wikipedia map

Randall's report focuses on a small fire department in Bennington, Vermont, pop. 15,400, working to put out a fast-burning brush fire "in one of the most remote corners of southern Vermont. By the time the first crew arrived, the fire had spread with shifting winds coaxing a rapid uphill burn. . . . With just seven volunteer firefighters available to tackle a wildfire that might torch hundreds of acres of mountain wilderness, a mutual aid request went out to four other departments, including one from across the state line in New York.

"Other crews responded, but they, too, were dealing with a depleted volunteer corps. As each new team scrambled up the rugged terrain, others stepped back, exhausted from time spent digging fire lines — dirt channels in the angled terrain — and tackling burning brush while carrying power tools and 40-pound water packs. It was grueling, dangerous work with little rest while the blaze burned on, in this case, for nearly eight hours."

The lack of volunteer firefighters is a nationwide problem, more acutely felt by rural areas, such as Vermont, where "88% of their fire crews are staffed mostly or entirely by volunteers," Randall explains. "Fewer and fewer people are joining their ranks, and long-time volunteers are aging out. The crisis isn't confined to Vermont. Nationally, 70% of fire departments are mostly or entirely volunteer, and the number of new recruits is also declining."

The National Fire Protection Association, which tracks the numbers of volunteer firefighters in the United States, says the numbers have dropped 17% over a five-year period, Randall reports -- "from about 815,000 in 2015 to 677,000 in 2020, the last year for which figures were available. It's in small towns and rural areas with fewer resources where the falloff in volunteering has been felt the most, in communities where firefighters are the first line of defense for everything from fires to car crashes to natural disaster rescue missions."

"Among the raft of recruitment and retention challenges facing volunteer fire departments, stringent training and certification guidelines top the list," Randall explains. Rural fire departments bear the added burden of needing more good-paying jobs to keep volunteer firefighters in town. 

Rabbi Howard Cohen, who served as fire department deputy chief in Bennington, told Randall, "We have huge respect for firefighters, but we need to acknowledge the fire service has been in a state of crisis for a long time. It’s an antiquated model that absolutely needs to change."

Emergency medical services aren't considered 'essential' in some states; 4.5 million people live in 'ambulance deserts'

Many states have yet to declare EMS as an 'essential service.'

(Photo by Ian Taylor, Unsplash)

If you're having an emergency, you can call 911, but that doesn't mean there's an ambulance or paramedics nearby to come to your aid. "Most states don't declare emergency medical services to be an 'essential service,' meaning the state government isn't required to provide or fund them," reports Nada Hassanein of Stateline. "Now, though, a growing number of states are taking an interest in recognizing ambulance services as essential. . . .Experts say the momentum might be driven by the pandemic, a decline in volunteerism and the rural health care shortage."

Smaller towns and out-of-the-way places face the most complex struggles. "The lack of EMS services is acute in rural America, where EMS agencies and rural hospitals continue to shutter at record rates, meaning longer distances to life-saving care," Hassanein writes. Longtime paramedic Brenden Hayden, chairperson of the National EMS Advisory Council, a governmental advisory group within the U.S. Department of Transportation, told Hassanein: "The fact that people expect it, but yet it's not listed as an essential service in many states, and it's not supported as such really, is where that dissonance occurs."

EMS services struggle partially because "there isn’t a sole federal agency dedicated to overseeing or funding EMS, with multiple agencies handling different regulations, and some federal dollars in the form of grants and highway safety funds from the Department of Transportation," Hassanein explains. "By contrast, police departments are supported and receive funds from the U.S. Department of Justice along with local tax dollars, and fire departments are supported by the U.S. Fire Administration, although many underserved areas also rely on volunteer firefighters to fill gaps."

"About 4.5 million people across the United States live in an 'ambulance desert,' and more than half of those are residents of rural counties, according to a recent national study by the Maine Rural Health Research Center and the Rural Health Research & Policy Centers," Hassanein adds. "The researchers define an ambulance desert as a community 25 minutes or more from an ambulance station."

Drivers in decline: Shortage of volunteers complicates reaching health care and other necessities in rural America

"People who don’t have immediate access to transportation, especially in rural areas where public transit options are either limited or nonexistent," need help getting to health and other outside the home appointments, reports Christina Saint Louis of Kaiser Health News.

To answer this call, some non-profit organizations and charities reach out with volunteers to assist those who do not drive. "Several times a month, Jim Maybach drives 5 miles from his house in Hay Creek, Minnesota, toward the Mississippi. When he reaches Red Wing, a city of nearly 17,000 people, the 79-year-old retired engineer stops to pick up a senior whom he then delivers to an appointment, such as a dentist visit or an exercise class. When the appointment ends, Maybach is there to drive the person home. Maybach is unpaid, a volunteer among a cadre organized by Faith in Action in Red Wing, a nonprofit that relies on retirees to ferry residents to essential services," Saint Louis reports. 

Saint Louis cites a major obstacle that charities and volunteers face to simply give rides:

insufficient travel reimbursements under federal law. "Volunteers, like Maybach, are eligible for a reimbursement of 14 cents per mile, which generally doesn’t come close to covering the cost of gas and wear and tear on a vehicle. And while the Internal Revenue Service increased the business rate from 58.5 cents per mile to 62.5 cents per mile in June, it did not raise the charitable rate because it is under Congress’ purview and must be set by statute. The charitable rate was last changed in 1997."

Then there is the lack of volunteer numbers. Frank Douma, director of state and local policy and outreach for the Institute for Urban and Regional Infrastructure Finance at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, told Saint Louis, "When the baby boomers were retiring, they were driving people from the Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation, who were less numerous than baby boomers, so you had more people available to do the driving for fewer people . . . but now that the baby boomers are aging, those who may be most eligible to drive them are Gen X — and that’s a much smaller generation."

Teenagers are the entire staff of a rural New York volunteer ambulance service that had been depleted by the pandemic

From left, teenagers Nicklas Brazie, Sophia DeVito, Dalton Hardison and Graydon Brunet stand at the rear of their ambulance in Sackets Harbor, N.Y. (Photo by Kara Dry, Watertown Daily Times)

Volunteer fire departments and ambulance services in rural areas have been running short of volunteers for many years, and the problem has worsened in the pandemic. In one small town in northern New York, teenage volunteers have become essential to the local ambulance service.

In Sackets Harbor, a town of 1,400 near Watertown at the east end of Lake Ontario, "A lot of older volunteers stepped away because of Covid-19 health concerns," NPR reports, introducing a story from Amy Feiereisel of North Country Public Radio.

Every member of the eight-person ambulance crew is under 21, Feiereisel reports: "Twenty-year-old Grayden Brunet is the EMS captain. He manages the budget and runs the ship." When the pandemic hit, "Brunet says a lot of the older EMTs stopped responding to calls altogether."

"We came in one day and realized we were the only ones coming in," Brunet told Feiereisel, who reports, "Three teenage boys were shouldering an almost unfathomable burden, responding to heart attacks and car accidents and suicides, transporting Covid-19 patients to the nearest city hospital. In New York, like many states, 17-year-olds can become certified EMTs."

Then, "A whole new batch of teenagers applied to join the crew, starting with Sophia DeVito. She was 16. Her entire family had gotten Covid-19. After that, she wanted to help people," Feiereisel reports. DeVito told her, "It's someone's mother. It's someone's father. It's a grandmother. It's a parent. It's a child. These are actual people's lives."

As for the EMTs' education, "Their school, Sackets Harbor Central, allows the 17-year-old members to leave class to go on calls," Feiereisel reports. "If they don't, the ambulance might not run."

Pandemic further stresses rural volunteer fire departments

A chief walks through his fire station in Ringgold, Va.
(Photo by Caleb Ayers, Danville Register & Bee)

Rural fire departments have struggled to get adequate funding, volunteers, employees and equipment, but the pandemic has made the situation worse.

"Rural firefighters have been on the front lines of the pandemic, tackling wildfires and vehicle accidents even as they transport ill and injured residents to hospitals," Aallyah Wright reports for Stateline. "Covid-19’s heavy toll on rural hospitals has extended to emergency responders, meaning firefighters are answering more medical calls than ever before. The increased workload, and the specter of vaccine mandates, has made recruitment even tougher."

The pandemic has traumatized rural firefighters and other health-care providers. "The mass death and suffering of the past 20 months has spawned a surge of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, insomnia and substance use disorder among health care professionals of all kinds," Wright reports. "Answering calls at the homes of relatives, friends and neighbors—which many rural firefighters have had to do—magnifies the pain."

That's on top of difficulties rural fire departments already face, such as poor roads and communications infrastructure, increasingly frequent and more powerful wildfires, and state laws that can require volunteer EMTs to transfer patients to paramedics for more advanced treatment—without compensation.

That's a lot to ask a volunteer to endure, even those who feel called to serve their communities as fire fighters. "Of more than 1.1 million firefighters nationwide, 67% are volunteers who are not paid or receive a minimal amount to cover gas and other expenses, according to a 2021 fact sheet by the National Volunteer Fire Council," Wright reports. "Many of them are in rural America: Nearly 40% of communities with between 5,000 and 9,999 residents had all-volunteer departments as of 2018, according to a tally released last year by the National Fire Protection Association. In communities with between 2,500 and 4,999 people, the percentage of all-volunteer departments was 72%, and 92% in towns of less than 2,500."

Younger people are far less likely to volunteer at fire departments, several firefighters told Wright. Bob Timko, of the National Volunteer Fire Council's recruitment and retention committee, told her that volunteer departments need to work harder to recruit, possibly by partnering with local businesses: "[Young people] aren’t coming in the door ... I would challenge leadership to develop a program or use resources to educate people on what we do."

Quick hits: Rural coroners often have little training; fears about food are driving shortages of canning supplies

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

A rural woman's volunteer efforts to make masks have won her the Kansas Department of Agriculture's Ag Hero Award. Read more here.

In Washington state and others, many rural coroners have little to no training in forensic pathology, leading to questionable or shoddy work. Read more here.

Appalachians working to save wild ginseng from being overharvested. Read more here.

Urban and suburban fears about food-chain shortages are driving shortages of canning supplies, long a rural norm. Read more here.

A partnership between the Okeechobee County Public Library and the University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries aims to improve access to quality health information in rural areas through expanding the Little Free Library system. Read more here.

Mountain Valley Pipeline developers have once again pushed the project's completion date back and the estimated cost up. Read more here.

The Trump administration demoted Neil Chatterjee, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, after he suggested taking action on climate change. Read more here.

Hunger roundup: food banks struggle; Trump letter in USDA food boxes draws protests; maximum SNAP benefits go up

Here's a trio of hunger-related items:

Food banks seeing record increases in demand

Food banks have seen record increases in demand since the coronavirus pandemic began, but donations and volunteers are down, leaving them struggling to meet the needs of food-insecure Americans.

"Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, projects a 6 billion to 8 billion meal shortfall in the next 12 months, a deficit that may be magnified with federal food assistance programs set to expire in the coming weeks and months," Laura Reiley reports for The Washington Post. "The Feeding America analysis estimates the total need for charitable food over the next year will reach 17 billion pounds, more than three times last year’s distribution."

Tens of millions of Americans have turned to food banks during the pandemic after losing their jobs or having their hours cut. "About 10 percent of American adults, 22.3 million, reported they sometimes or often didn’t have enough to eat within the past week, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse Survey fielded between Aug. 19 and 31. That is up from 18 million before March 13."

Rural Americans, especially children and seniors, are more likely to be food insecure. According to Feeding America, 2.3 million rural households face hunger. Though 63% of U.S. counties are rural, 87% of counties with the highest rates of overall food insecurity are rural. The organ notes that rural residents may have a harder time accessing food banks because of distance and transportation troubles. 

Letter from Trump in some food boxes; to enlarge, click on it.

Trump letters in food boxes criticized

Some are accusing the Trump administration of attempting to make political hay of the food insecurity crisis in a way that violates the Hatch Act. Lawmakers and ethics watchdogs are protesting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recent requirement that federal contractors stuff signed letters from President Trump into food boxes for hungry families. 

The "$4 billion Farmers to Families Food Box Program has distributed more than 100 million boxes to those in need since May, with the aim of redirecting meat, dairy and produce that might normally go to restaurants and other food-service businesses," Helena Bottemiller Evich reports for Politico. "But organizations handing out the aid complain the program is now being used to bolster Trump’s image a month before a high-stakes election — and some even have refused to distribute them."

Some food banks are removing the letters because they don't want to be seen as endorsing a candidate and risk losing their nonprofit tax status, Reilley and Kim Bellware report for the Post.

Maximum SNAP benefits go up a little        

In related news about hunger, on Oct. 1, the Department of Agriculture increased the maximum benefit amounts for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by 5.3%. That translates to $34 more per month for a typical household of four receiving the maximum amount. Rural households are more likely to rely on SNAP benefits.

Rural fire departments face extra challenges

Rural fire departments are often staffed by volunteers who see it as a way to serve their communities. But being a volunteer firefighter or emergency medical technician "involves much more than just showing up for emergencies. In many ways, rural volunteer fire districts must work harder than 'career' departments to secure adequate funding, to maintain a workable infrastructure, and to recruit and properly train enough crew members for their needs," Kat Bryant reports for The Daily World in Aberdeen, Washington.

Because fire-department funding is mostly based on locally assessed taxes, less-populated areas get less funding. But sometimes state law requires volunteer fire departments to provide extra services that they don't get compensated for, Bryant reports.

Assistant Fire Chief Shari Cutright of Fire District 8 in Pacific Beach, Washington, told Bryant that, for example, their EMTs must transfer some patients to paramedics for more advanced treatment. "Under state mandate, if a person is having difficulty breathing, it’s automatic that we have to meet up with paramedics, and they transfer the patient," Curtright said. "We get nothing from that; they get everything."

"And by 'everything,' she means the ALS transporter [the company the paramedics work for] charges not only the patient, but also District 8 for that run," Bryant reports. "That is generally how it works for the rural fire districts: [districts that provide only basic life support] must pay either monthly or per-transport fees to neighboring providers for paramedic coverage as needed."

Poor road and communications infrastructure can also complicate response for rural fire departments. Nick Falley, a firefighter and EMT with Fire District 7 in rural Washington, told Bryant it's difficult for volunteer firefighters to lobby local governments to address infrastructure problems. "When I bring it up with the county, they say we have these radio board (meetings) that are scheduled at times when our volunteer chiefs are at their (day) jobs" Falley said. "Career departments have the resources to vouch for their infrastructure, and then we kind of get the slim pickins — and we’re out in the areas where we really need it."

House report warns of poll-worker shortage in swing states

"States risk not having enough poll workers on Election Day if they do not step up efforts to help local election officials recruit and prepare for the November presidential election, a new congressional report warns," Andrea Noble reports for Route Fifty. The Democrat-controlled House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis "analyzed the election preparations of four states—Florida, Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin—and found they all face a potential shortage of these crucial temporary workers, which could lead to significant delays for voters who cast ballots in person."

Georgia needs 20,000 poll workers, but the report said only 5,000 possible workers had been found. Since the report, about 10,000 more have signed up, Stanley Dunlap reports for Georgia Public Broadcasting. Dougherty County said it had only 29 volunteers but needs 196. Its county seat, Albany, and surrounding areas are majority-Black areas that have been hit hard by the pandemic, Noble reports.

"In-person voting may be particularly important in Georgia on Election Day, as the state is not sending absentee-ballot applications to voters for the general election the same way it did for the primaries this year," Noble reports. "The other three states did not identify the total number of poll workers needed statewide. The report faults them for not overseeing statewide recruitment efforts and instead leaving preparations up to local officials."

Poll workers will be critical in Texas too, which has not expanded mail-in voting. There could be a poll-worker shortage in half of the state's counties, Noble reports. The report recommends that states "move swiftly and proactively" to ensure safer and more successful in-person voting.

Aided by covid-19 relief funds, longtime officer manager buys and resurrects closing rural Minnesota weekly

Chatfield, Minn. (Wikipedia map)

After 40 years working at the Chatfield News in rural southeastern Minnesota, Pam Bluhm got a big promotion, in a way: When she found out the weekly was closing in March, the 60-year-old office manager bought it and is now the publisher, John Reinan reports for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

In doing so, the lifelong Chatfield resident saved a 164-year-old paper that's older than the state of Minnesota. Bluhm said she couldn't stand the thought of Chatfield, a town of 2,800, losing the News. And she wasn't sure what she would do with her life after working at the paper for so long.

"I didn’t know what I was going to do after 40 years," Bluhm told Reinan. "And I thought, 'This [ownership] is what I gotta do.' And Chatfield needs a newspaper. It was either this or go to work at the deli."

Bluhm only had $400 in her checking account when the paper closed, and still has a second job cleaning a local medical building 10 hours a week. "Her startup money was the $1,200 covid stimulus check she got in the spring. That was enough to register a new corporation with the secretary of state and buy the paper’s computers and file cabinets," Reinan reports.

Bluhm's determination to serve Chatfield has come back to her tenfold; as she helps the townspeople through policies such as free obituaries (which she views as a community service), the town helps her right back. "She has a small freelance budget but gets most of her content from community members who write for free," Reinan reports. "Volunteers make the weekly 60-mile run to pick up the papers in Calmar, Iowa, where they’re printed."

Bluhm lives on the second floor of the News building and is almost always around the office, ready to swap stories or take some news. Her policies seem to be working: "Since Bluhm took over, the News’ circulation is up about 15 percent, to 865 subscribers. A yearly subscription costs $35 — or $40 for out-of-towners," Reinan reports.

Subscriptions and volunteering aren't the only way townspeople support the paper. Current and former locals have sent Bluhm dozens of letters, many with checks for as much as $400, thanking her for keeping the paper going, Reinan reports.

Local business owner Dawn Cole told Reinan that the News "is kind of a staple here in town, especially for us business owners. There are still a lot of people in Chatfield who like to have the paper in hand."

Outstanding rural volunteers could win $10,000 award; top local elected leaders must send in nominations by Aug. 15

Nominations are open for the Small Town America Civic Volunteer Award, which recognizes extraordinary volunteer service in communities of 5,000 people or smaller. The program will honor 100 outstanding volunteers nationwide; the top three will receive $10,000, $7,500, and $5,000, respectively. Nominations must be made by the chief elected official of a community by Aug. 15, and the awards will be announced Sept. 15. Click here for more information.

"Research shows that the percent of people volunteering in small communities and rural counties has dropped substantially over the last 12 years," says the website. "Civic volunteerism is the lifeblood of small town and rural America. STACVA is intended to help address this critical shortage by recognizing and supporting 'hometown heroes,' and by promoting best practices designed to spur a cadre of new civic volunteers to fill these vital roles."

The award is organized by CivicPlus, a technology platform company geared toward local governments, and co-sponsored by the National Association of Counties, the National Volunteer Fire Council, the National Association of Towns and Townships, Points of Light, and Main Street America.

Pandemic complicates response to huge California wildfire; check your county's wildfire risk with interactive map

Wildfire risk map from Wildfirerisk.org. Click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

California is facing its largest wildfire since the deadly 2018 Camp Fire, aided by an exceptionally dry winter, but the coronavirus pandemic has sidelined more than 1,000 incarcerated firefighters. "The setbacks highlight the challenges that California and other Western states are facing heading into the most dangerous part of fire season amid the worst pandemic in more than 100 years," Kevin Stark reports for NPR. "Even a potential exposure to the virus could sideline hundreds of firefighters for weeks."

Two smaller lightning-sparked fires in Modoc and Siskiyou counties, near the Oregon border, have merged to form the Caldwell Fire, now approaching 80,000 acres and about 45 percent contained. In comparison, the Camp Fire was 153,336 acres, The Bay Area News Group reports.

The fire has been more difficult to contain because nearly 1,000 incarcerated firefighters have been quarantined by the coronavirus pandemic. "In late June, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials put 12 prison fire camps on lockdown after they were potentially exposed to the coronavirus through outbreaks within the prison system, sidelining as many as 750 inmate firefighters," Stark reports. A few weeks later, the quarantine was extended after another potential exposure.

According to state fire agency Cal Fire, about 3,500 of the state's 15,500 wildfire fighters were inmates in recent years. "But this year, many inmate firefighters were sent home from prison after the state granted early release to thousands of prisoners to depopulate crowded facilities and slow the spread of the coronavirus," Stark reports. "As a result, less than half of California's inmate firefighting crews were active for duty much of July." Gov. Gavin Newsom, has promised to hire more than 800 seasonal firefighters.

The Caldwell Fire will not likely be the last significant wildfire this season, since much of the Western U.S. had an exceptionally dry winter. And responding to those wildfires could be complicated even without the issue of prison labor, since volunteer firefighters face the same quarantine issues.

Wildfires aren't just a California phenomenon. See your county and state's risk level at WildfireRisk.org, a searchable, interactive database maintained by the U.S. Forest Service.

Search-and-rescue teams, which rely mainly on rural volunteers, are being stretched thin by the pandemic

The Rocky Mountain Rescue Group in Colorado on a mission earlier this year. (RMRG photo via Stateline)

Search-and-rescue teams, lifelines that are mainly by volunteers in rural areas, are being stretched thin by the coronavirus pandemic, Alex Brown reports for Stateline.

"The pandemic has led some older and higher-risk members to stay home, while others who have lost work or changed jobs no longer have the money or flexibility to deploy. And the need to postpone or cancel in-person training means fewer new volunteers, accelerating a long-term problem," Brown writes. "The pandemic also has forced teams to adjust rescue practices for social distancing and buy protective equipment such as masks."

In some areas, such as southwestern Utah, the need for searches and rescues have increased. “We've been very taxed,” said Sgt. Darrell Cashin, a sheriff-department liaison for the teams. “When covid came out, I really thought our rescues were going to drop through the floor. But we're actually having a record year at this point, with a diminished capacity to respond. It was like the floodgates opened. It's been rescue after rescue after rescue, and it's not stopped.”

Brown reports, "In response, lawmakers in several states are considering proposals ranging from providing state funding for programs and workers’ compensation insurance for volunteers to charging people for their rescues." That would be a case of first impression for most states. "Nearly all search and rescue missions in the United States are handled by volunteer teams, who mostly pay for their own equipment and work under a patchwork of guidelines and government oversight that can vary widely by state," Brown reports.

SAR teams in many areas were already busier than before because outdoor recreation has been increasing lately, Brown notes: "Many of the newcomers to public lands are inexperienced and lack the appropriate gear, skills or fitness for major excursions. SAR leaders say they often have to rescue hikers who become lost when their phone loses its signal or dies, or who try to summit a mountain they saw on Instagram without researching the terrain or weather."

Rural food banks face new challenges amid pandemic

Food banks across the nation are struggling to keep up with demand as unemployed families seek help during the pandemic. But rural food banks are dealing with "the additional challenges of getting food to those who live in isolated places with fewer volunteers and donations," Emily Ness reports for WDIO-TV in Duluth.

According to the director at Second Harvest North Central Food Bank in Duluth, food must be packed up and distributed instead of allowing people to come in and take it from the shelf, in order to maintain social distancing. That takes more volunteers, and volunteers tend to be senior citizens. But Second Harvest, in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has barred seniors from volunteering during the pandemic. That leaves them with fewer volunteers, Ness reports.

Second Harvest is also spending more money distributing the food in rural areas since there are so many new people who need help from the food bank. That means increased costs for gas and mileage, Ness reports.