Milford Food Bank has seen a spike in demand in recent weeks. InkFreeNews photos.

Cars line up to pick up food in Milford and transport items to different pantries in the area.

By Leah Sander
and Blair Baumgartner
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — Numerous food pantries are reporting a spike in demand as the cost of many consumer items continues to rise as a result of inflation.

Consumers of many products are seeing the biggest boost in prices in 40 years as the economic indicator reached 9.1% compared to figures from 12 months ago – the largest jump since November 1981.

Below are some updates from food banks in and around Kosciusko County.

Combined Community Services in Warsaw has been “super busy” on the days that its food pantry is open, according to Executive Director Randy Polston.

“We are getting slammed every day that the food pantry is open,” he said. “Things are just so expensive (due to inflation).”

CCS Director of Emergency Services Tim Frame said that in June the nonprofit helped 512 families with food, which is up from 404 from the same time last year. CCS served around 1,400 individuals total for June 2022.

Frame said the organization has roughly doubled the number of families seeking help through the utility assistance program compared to a year ago. Through June 2022, CCS helped 127 families with $16,416 worth of utility assistance compared to 64 families with $8,542 through the first half of 2021.

He said he believes the number of people served will be high in the fall and winter due to people seeking help with heating bills.

Frame also said the numbers of people asking for help are going “back to pandemic numbers,” though a key difference is that there are not as many resources available now for help as there were during the pandemic.

It was in January that CCS first saw a jump in the number of people served.

The Milford Food Bank has seen its demand increase by 20-30% in the past few weeks, according to Bill Doege, the food bank’s operations manager.

He said food items are becoming harder and harder to get and donations are going down.

“The need is growing,” said Dennis Wuthrich, who has volunteered with the Milford Food Bank since its inception 13 years ago. “We have 120 food pantries we take care of in northern Indiana and southern Michigan and they are telling us their numbers are going up.”

“We currently provide about three semi loads per week to Kosciusko, Elkhart, St. Joe, Allen, LaGrange, Steuben and Noble counties. We service all the way up to DeKalb County and Fremont, but there are only a few pantries in that area.”

Paul Kohler, who along with his wife, Tina, operates Paul’s Food Pantry in Olive Township, Elkhart County, said they’ve been assisting 47 families.

“The number of families has increased by 10 just in this past week,” Tina said.

Van Buren Township Food Pantry has also seen growing demand.

“There has been a recent influx of layoffs and new clients are coming in, but most are returnees,” said Vicki Scarpellini, office manager for the pantry. “We serve about 30-45 people per month and are open from 2-5 p.m. every Tuesday and Friday. We get a lot of supplies from the Milford Food Bank,” she said.

“When COVID hit, there was a problem with volunteers because they were scared, but recently we have seen an increase,” said Rich Warner, a volunteer for Christian Community Pantry in Walkerton. “I know there are still people out there who qualify that just don’t come. We have never turned anyone away.”