BATON ROUGE- One million pounds of food and that's the typical amount the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank distributes to it’s partnering agencies every month. But, right now that will not be possible this holiday season because shelves inside are bare.

Food bank and CEO President Mike Manning says the shortage is due in part to disasters across the area over the past few years. He says food industry donations are down because those companies have had to focus resources on helping victims.

If the trend continues and the shelves remain empty Manning says the food bank will have to ration what each agency can receive, but you can help push the food bank through the holiday season.

Food drives and cash donations are the easiest ways to play a role. Just one dollar can provide three meals, and Manning says the Food Bank can make your money go further.

Instead of people heading to the grocery store and buying cans for 70 to 90 cents, the food bank can buy cans in bulk, through a wholesaler for roughly five to ten cents. The center also needs volunteers, Manning says right now, they can will take anything they can get.

“It's very abnormal for it to be this empty, especially this time of year. We've seen this problem in summer in the past, but never this time of year. This is usually the time of the year where we're building inventory to go into the post-holiday period to get us through to lend, and we're not there, so we're playing catch-up,” Manning said.

You can help the Food Bank make progress through donations both in the form of food and money are accepted daily. For every one dollar donated, that could provide up to 3 meals.