Let’s meet unprecedented need with unprecedented assistance

The numbers are in regarding food insecurity in Rhode Island, and they are a sobering reminder of the reality faced by far too many of our fellow Rhode Islanders.

Hopefully, they will also serve as a rallying call to action for those in positions to effect positive change for their neighbors going through these unprecedentedly difficult times.

In their 2024 Status Report on Hunger, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank has revealed that a staggering 38% of all Rhode Islanders are food insecure, including a near majority of Black households (47%) and over a majority of Latino households (55%). Combined, these at-risk families have missed over 42 million meals in the past year — nearly four times as many as the estimated number of meals missed in 2019.

There is no way to avoid the shocking nature of these findings, which far surpass the historic levels of need seen even during Covid, when widespread disruptions to help networks and access to goods and services resulted in a quarter of households facing food insecurity.
Food pantries and community agencies have continued to rise to the challenge but are fighting against insurmountable obstacles. With 84,400 people relying on pantries each month in 2024 (nearly 10% above the need just one year ago), they are finding themselves ill-equipped to handle the surge, both in terms of volunteers and in terms of support from their funding sources.

The report clearly indicates that there is something fundamentally wrong in terms of people being able to support themselves and their families. Whether the rising cost of groceries and other goods and services, flatlining wages, a lack of meaningful job opportunities, or a combination of all these things, the result and effect are evidently apparent in this report.

Hundreds of thousands of our friends, coworkers and fellow community members are going through life unsure of whether they will end the day with a full stomach, and that is a national shame we cannot turn from but rather must face head on.

Congress must do its part to ensure federal funding for programs like SNAP, WIC, School Meals and Summer EBT are expanded, not scapegoated as “excesses” in the name of some warped sense of fiscal prudence. State agencies and advocates must lobby, and lobby hard, to make legislators know that the wellbeing of their constituents is not a political game, but a humanitarian crisis in the making.

Locally, each of us who are fortunate enough to not be included in that 38% figure must recognize the good fortune we enjoy and strive to give back — particularly during a time of year when the encouragement of good will, selflessness and a general sense of charity permeates every fiber of our society.

Donate to a local food drive, donate to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, volunteer at a pantry and bring a friend with you. An unprecedented need warrants an unprecedented response. So if you’re waiting for the call to action, or the canary in the coal mine to start singing, this recent report is it.

The time to help is now, not later. So let’s all chip in and make 2024 the year when records were shattered for assistance, and not just need.