This week Feeding America released the most recent Map the Meal Gap study on food insecurity throughout the U.S. It should come as no surprise that the level of food insecurity has increased uniformly throughout the Feeding America network. Freestore Foodbank is witnessing a similar increase in food insecurity in our 20-county service area of the tristate.
While these numbers are from 2022, the demand that we are seeing at our Liberty Street and Bea Taylor Markets, in addition to what our 600+ pantry network is sharing, the 2024 numbers are not decreasing. We are awaiting the numbers for our Senior Population, which tends to track the overall increases on a historic basis and our Senior Population is usually an area where we see an increased need for all of our services.