Winterport, Min – Felis Allen spends her days searching for things. It is looking for potatoes in the Sam Club, cheap beets and ginger in Wall Mart and the local grocery store. She is studying the weekly stock of Good Shepherd, Maine’s Only Food bankFor good deals on butter and cheese.
Every Monday morning, shopping in three different stores, keeping price lists in the head and remembering what the appointed customers want. On a modern trip to the Sam Club, she was looking for reasonable eggs.
It was found by the manager of the 78 -year -old food store in a large cooler. Stretching, huge boxes of the upper rack – seventeen eggs each, pulled $ 21 for a quarter. She said: “$ 2.82.” “This is a good price for eggs.”
The eggs were heading to the neighbors’ wardrobe, the food store in Winterport, Maine, who helped Allen run over the past 17 years. Every Wednesday, she and a group of narrow volunteers are available from 25 to 30 beds with food bags.
Maine has long ago One of the most insecure countries In New England. Food tank managers say that the task of ensuring that people are fed are more difficult due to the contraction of food supplies, increased demand and overwhelming dependence on volunteers, and many of them are retired ages between the eighties.
About one of seven people in Walou Rural Province, where there is a wardrobe of neighbors, was unsafe from food in 2023, a state -like average of the state and the national average, according to the Associated Press analysis of the American Statistics Office and the feeding of America’s data.
The US Department of Agriculture will He stopped collecting statistics and issuing food insecurity After October, saying on September 20 that the numbers became “excessive politicization.”
In March, the Trump administration Lower more than a billion dollars From two programs from the US Department of Agriculture – Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides free food for food banks across the country, and the Local Cooperative Convention for Food Procial, which provides money for regional and tribal governments to buy food from local farmers for distribution to relief organizations from hunger.
“I can watch the provision of federal food decreases every month,” Allen said.
Charitable food networks are also preparing for $ 186 billion in cuts Supplementary Nutrition Help (SNAP)Federal Nutrition Program known as food stamps. In turn, America’s nutrition predicts that food stock will see more demand.
The complexity of matters is the infrastructure through which the United States distributes most food to those who need help. In Maine, nearly 600 relief agencies are dependent on hunger that get free and low -cost food from Good Shepherd Food on volunteers. This includes 250 food stocks, in addition to soup kitchens, higher centers, shelters, schools and youth programs.
More than 75 % of these organizations depend completely on volunteers, with no paid employees, according to Good Shepherd.
Anna Corson, who participated in the head of hunger in the advisory committee in Maine, said that food stocks alone are not the solution to food insecurity.
“If our goal is to end hunger in Maine, which is a noble goal, we will not do this through a charitable dining network run by volunteers, right?” She said. “This is supposed to be in crisis situations … but what happened is that it is just part of the diet now. It should not be.”
The neighbor’s treasury in the activity on the morning of the last Wednesday, stacked cans in piles of six feet and children’s classifications registered on a cooler.
Keith Ritchie was greeting customers – and watching us nice to make sure that no one has taken more than their just share of limited foods. At eight, he is the oldest worker in the store, although Betty Williams, 88, is annoyed by who is older.
In more than 17 years of service, Richie said, “I just missed me.” It leads 20 miles (32 km) in each direction to clarify grocery stores and fill bags with “surprises” – donated elements such as Girl Scout.
He said: “You see many of the people you know.” “I don’t know anyone’s name, but I don’t need a name. I just look at their faces.”
It can be difficult to get the younger volunteers of eggs at reasonable prices. About 35 % of Mainers-third volunteers in the country, according to a report issued by 2024 on civil health in Maine. The same report said that only 20 % of the millennial generation volunteer in Maine, half of the general and Baby Boomers.
Researcher Kixada Moore, an author of the report, said it is not a desire to serve, but the obstacles are on the way.
“I would like to classify it as a monsoons and wounded at work,” Moore Faisin said. “The increasing costs of everything, especially the cost of housing, means that people have to work more.”
The younger volunteers are increasingly looking for what the Minnesota alliance for non-profit progress is “juvenile”-the efforts for one time without commitment to future transformations. About 20 % of all volunteers contribute through a mix of online and personality work, according to Americanorps 2023 survey.
The decrease in volunteer numbers can cause one -time connections to the links.
Jolly Green, the volunteer’s director, said Harvist Hartland in Minnesota was to remove thousands of pounds in early September because the country’s second largest food bank had enough people to sort it.
As a result, the food tanks in Minnesota and West Weslines were less food.
Green is struggling to fill the incompatibility between the need for personal volunteer work, such as Produce Packers, and the increasing desire for accidental service.
She said: “How can we provide more of these single and reliable opportunities, so people are involved with us, and we still do what we have to do to complete the work?”
In the neighbor’s wardrobe, Allen said the financing discounts are not the most challenging part of its work. She said that she maintains volunteers, in particular, “with age and have health concerns or that their families have health concerns.”
Distribution of muscle food requires reliable strong volunteers who can lead long distances in ice and ice to pick up or provide heavy food boxes.
A year ago, Allen told her colleagues, “You find me a large piece with a truck.” They lost a 78 -year -old volunteer when his wife fell ill. Without an alternative, they will not have any way to capture hundreds of pounds every week.
With an oral word, one Allen was found: Brian McLaren, 67. But just months after starting it, he needed knee surgery. The employees again had to search for an alternative.
Since March, Mini Mins has seen her food from a good shepherd with half or more. To date, the neighborhood cabinet contains enough to wrap, partly because the local population donated 5,000 pounds (2300 kilograms) of food while driving. But the changes are coming.
In late August, Allen received an email from Good Shepherd. The food bank said, as the demand is increasing, it is now allowed for supplies to remove visitors who do not live soon-which is the opposite of the long-awaited food philosophy of all.
Allen did not have it.
“We will continue to serve everyone,” she wrote in an email to Maine Monitor.
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AP KASTURI PANANJADY data journalist contributed to this report.
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This report is part of a series called sowing flexibility, cooperation Between the Institute of Non -profit news ” Rural news network The Associated Press focused on how rural communities throughout the United States moved into food insecurity. Nine non -profit news rooms participated in the series: Lighthouseand Capital band Enable Latino NCand Investigation in the Middle Westand Geofferson Province Lighthouseand Kosoand General media for Louisvilleand Min screen and minnpost. The rural news network is funded by the Google News and Knight Foundation initiative, among other things.
The Ministry of Health and Science at Associated Press receives support from the Science Education Department at the Howard Hughes Institute for the Medical Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP is the only responsible for all content.