Peoria food pantries are feeling the strain of more people in need, as COVID-19 closures take away jobs and access to food.
Willa Lucas runs the pantry based in the East Bluff Community Center. She said last weekend, they saw 23 new families come through the doors. Twelve were from the neighborhood, but had never come to the pantry before.
“People are scared,” Lucas said. “They’re desperate. They’re doing things they might not have done in the past. And the longer this goes, the worse it’s going to get.”
Lucas said several Peoria food pantries have closed and others, like hers, are running low on supply. She said she had enough food left to open up shop this morning, but her next stock up from the food bank isn’t until mid-April.
“We’ll give till we can’t give anymore, but things are limited,” she said.
The brunt of the stress to keep families fed amid COVID-19 has so far been felt by pantries. But the food banks that supply inventory to them could soon feel the pressure, too.
Wayne Cannon oversees the Peoria Area Food Bank, which provides food to 83 pantries in Peoria, Tazewell, and Mason counties.
Cannon said efforts to keep enough food in the reserves now could spell trouble down the road.
“Our resources needed to last us for the year,” he said. “But now everything is kind of being front loaded. We’re trying to get as much as we can in the warehouse now, in anticipation of this general rise [in demand].”
Cannon said for now, the distribution network is holding pretty steady. But he anticipates that could change, as COVID-19 ratchets up.
Cannon said five of the pantries his food bank serves have already closed their doors. About 70% of the others have changed their method of distribution — prepackaging food, delivering curbside, or only allowing one person in the pantry at a time.
He said food banks, in turn, have also changed their distribution practices, prioritizing the bare necessities.
“We kind of shifted our focus from providing healthy food to just making sure people are getting food — that the pantries are taken care of and their needs are being met,” he said.
Cannon said, so far, they haven’t received any state or federal dollars to sustain the demand. He said what’s needed most right now is cash donations and healthy volunteers.
Neighbors Helping Neighbors
One Peorian concerned about her neighbors' ability to access food during the pandemic took matters into her own hands.
Kelli Martin, a CNA and mother of five, said some of her neighbors in the West Bluff are out of work because of the COVID-19 response. One in particular stood out: a mother with three young children who Martin often sees walking to the gas station to buy groceries.
That's when she thought of an easy way to help.
“I was like ‘what else can I do to help this lady’ that I don’t even know — don’t even know her name,” Martin said. “So I started this free pantry. I just went through my pantry and pulled out things that we weren’t reaching for that much.”
Martin said she’s been running the pantry at 1122 N. Ellis St. for about two weeks. Donations from friends and people who have seen what she’s doing on social media have allowed the pantry to grow. Some days, she said she’s seeing upwards of 20 people stop for food.
Martin said many in her neighborhood already struggle with food insecurity, regardless of the strains caused by COVID-19.
“One of the problems is a lot of people are shopping at places that they normally wouldn’t shop for food, because they can’t shop anywhere else,” she said. “They’re shopping at Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree.”
Martin said as shoppers from other parts of the city run into the problem of not being able to find items at other stores, they’re also heading to the places her neighbors rely — sometimes buying far more than they need.
“But they don’t realize that they’re taking away from the person who lives right down the street who can only walk to that store,” she said.
On top of that, Martin said, nearby gas stations are price gouging on necessities like bread and eggs.
Martin said she’ll continue the pantry as long as the need — and supply — exists. She said she sees this as an opportunity to unite her community and do her part to help.
“As long as I can get donations from my friends to keep it moving, then that’s what I’m going to do,” she said.
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