Courtesy The River Food Pantry
Thousands of families in Dane County visited food pantries for a Thanksgiving meal this year.
The holidays are the busiest time of year for Madison food pantries, but the flurry of visitors usually subsides after Jan. 1. That did not happen last year. WayForward Resources’ Leslie Huber says the number of visitors only continued to increase through 2023, resulting in the most visits in the organization’s 40-year history. She predicts a similar story after this year’s holiday season.
“We’ve been saying, ‘It’s got to even out, we’ve got to reach a plateau.’ But it’s just not happening,” says Huber. “I don’t see the pressures changing, at least in the immediate future.”
Huber says the organization’s Winter Wishes program, which provides gift cards to families for holiday meals, served 1,700 people last year. “We are on track to beat that this year,” says Huber, who notes that visits to WayForward were up more than 230% in November compared to January 2022. The organization serves Madison’s west side, Middleton and Cross Plains.
“Most people choose this type of work because they’re passionate about it and really care about people in their community. The idea of not being able to meet that need or having to turn people away is something that everyone worries about,” says Huber. She is clear that the pantry is not about to run out of food and that visitors are still welcome on a come-as-you-need basis. But the future is still troubling. “We all worry about that — will we be able to keep up with that need, and how?”
Huber says the end of COVID-era assistance programs has contributed to the increase: the Dane County CORE rental assistance program ran out of federal funds in May, and the expansion of SNAP food assistance benefits expired in February.
Helen Osborn-Senatus, director of operations at The River Food Pantry, tells Isthmus that scarce and expensive childcare is also a factor: Parents unable to find childcare can’t work full time and earn enough to afford the basics. Neither Huber nor Osborn-Senatus sees these issues going away in 2024.
During Dane County’s recent budget deliberations, supervisors reduced a proposed $6 million for the county’s Farm to Foodbank program to $4.5 million. Since then, Supv. Melissa Ratcliff introduced a separate resolution to add back $1.7 million to the program. The board is expected to review and vote on that resolution in coming weeks.
