President Joe Biden signed an executive order last month to expand food assistance programs, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT).
Hunger knows no boundaries — it touches every community in Westchester County, including our military families. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 50 million people may face hunger in the U.S. during 2020, and our military families are no exception.
Traditional food pantries have long been relied upon to serve communities, but in recent years, hunger-relief agencies have begun focusing their efforts on a more progressive food assistance tool: pantries on wheels. A mobile food pantry offers numerous benefits that a traditional food pantry does not. This modern means of getting food to the people who need it most has been gaining popularity and attracting the attention of nonprofit agencies and donors nationwide.
Millions of Americans live in households that struggle against hunger, and food insecurity has no boundaries. Hunger impacts society’s most vulnerable members across the country, including children. As parents are forced to choose between feeding their children three meals a day and paying essential bills, such as rent and electricity, chronic hunger can have serious effects on a child’s health and development.
Food is a basic need that millions of Americans struggle to afford. Oftentimes, people face hardships that could strike any of us, such as a family health emergency or an involuntary cutback in work hours, and could benefit from receiving some support to make ends meet.
In any area that’s known for its strong sense of community, there are local residents who get involved in making it a great place to live because they care about their town. Research shows that giving back to your community not only improves the lives of others and makes that area a better place to live, but it also enhances your mood. In fact, altruism is connected to positive physical and psychological effects that include increased feelings of happiness, increased self-esteem, lower blood pressure, reduced incidence of depression and lower stress levels.
When most people think about the ways that we fight hunger in our communities, one thing that comes to mind is their local food pantry — and for good reason. Food pantries are essential in the fight against hunger for the nearly 40 million Americans facing food insecurity, and increasingly, they’re becoming mobile entities. In fact, of the 200 food banks in the Feeding America network, 170 had already set up mobile counterparts by 2016. Just as a traditional food pantry is a distribution center that delivers food directly to those in need, think of a mobile food pantry as having the same benefits and goals — only it’s on wheels.
Seasonal workers help businesses thrive during their busiest times of the year, and there may be more temp workers out there than you’d think. Seasonal workers are filling roles in a variety of industries including the auto industry, holiday season retail, and food production (such as farm workers hired during peak crop-picking season, or bakery team members hired to assist with holiday orders). Even in the world of academia, professors with advanced degrees are sometimes hired as temp workers.
Food pantries are vital lifelines in the fight against hunger across America. Increasingly, pantries have been going mobile to deliver healthy food directly to areas that have high levels of need. So just what is a mobile food pantry, and how does it work?
