To keep up with growing demands for food from an ever-increasing number of Marylanders seeking assistance, the Maryland Food Bank (MFB) has developed a $28 million goal for its year-long plan that provides a blueprint for the amount of food and financial resources needed to maintain the high volume of activity MFB has seen since COVID-19 first emerged in mid-March.

“Like other food banks across the country, we are bracing for a challenging year ahead,” said MFB President & CEO Carmen Del Guercio. “With additional support from the government stalled, remote learning preventing kids from accessing the meals they rely on at school, and vulnerable populations continuing to be impacted by the effects of COVID-19, we are preparing for asignificant increase in food assistance needs for the foreseeable future.”

In anticipation of this surge in demand, MFBhas been diligently planningits next phase of work to support individuals and families who have been impacted by COVID-19 in the food bank’s service area, which includes the City of Baltimore and 21 Maryland counties. This Phase 2 of the organization’s COVID-19 Food Access Response Plan focuses on near-term efforts that will be needed to fight hunger through the end of 2020 and into 2021.

Specifically, the food bank will concentrate on expanding food access to those who are struggling most under COVID-19, including Marylanders who are:

-Newly unemployed as a result of COVID-related business closures and layoffs;

-Members of communities of color, which have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic; and

-Homebound or self-quarantined/quarantined and cannot leave their homes safely to access food

According to a number of economists, public health experts, and disaster response experts MFB consulted, these three groups are facing an inordinate number of challenges that the food bank is working to better understand so that it can ensure those most deeply impacted by the virus are continuing to receive food as the need intensifies.MFB will also use data and mapping resources to determine where these populations are located in order to deploy new and expanded food distribution methods inareas of greatest need.

Simultaneously, the food bankwill work to improve the nutritional quality of the food being distributed by swapping the current contents of Back Up Boxes (BUBs) for healthier foods, exploring the distribution of produce boxes to supplement the shelf-stable items found in BUBs, and including nutrition education inserts and recipes into these BUBs.

This work will supplement MFB’s accelerated efforts to respond to COVID-19, which have been in place since the coronavirus first emerged. From March through August, the food bank distributed more than 31.4 millionpounds of food vs. 15.9 million pounds during the same period in 2019, a 97% increase over last year. MFB is also spending more money than ever before to purchase food, having seen a 414% increase in the amount of money spent ($13.7M vs $2.7M) between March and August.

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“As we look ahead and do our best to prepare for the future, the one thing we know for certain is that this pandemic will disrupt the economy and suppress opportunity for months, if not years, to come,” Del Guercio added. “So as we look beyond Hunger Action Month, we’re going to need the support of Maryland residents, businesses, and government – public and private entities alike –to help usfeed the increasing numbers of individuals and families facing hungerstatewide.”

About the Maryland Food Bank

The Maryland Food Bank is a nonprofit hunger-relief organization dedicated to feeding people, strengthening communities, and ending hunger for more Marylanders by partnering with local organizations from the western mountains to the Eastern Shore. Last year, the food bank’s statewide network of food assistance brought enough resources together to provide the equivalent of 110,000 meals every day (over 40 million meals annually) to hungry children, seniors, veterans, and hard-working families, meeting the immediate needs of hungry Marylanders while simultaneously working to create pathways out of hunger. To learn more about the Maryland Food Bank, visit www.mdfoodbank.org.