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Local food bank may have to turn people away this season

5 years 3 months 4 weeks ago Monday, November 19 2018 Nov 19, 2018 November 19, 2018 6:16 PM November 19, 2018 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE- Donations to the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank have fed people in 11 parishes for more than 30 years.

4-year-old Kate Norsworthy says she donates because feels for the people in need.

"To bring the cans to other people. They want food so bad, they are starving!" said Kate, when asked why she was donating.

The food bank president Mike Manning says this season, they've seen fewer and fewer people like Kate.

"We've seen this kind of problem in during summers in the past, but never this time of year. This is usually the time of year when we're really building inventory to go into the post-holiday period to get us through lent, but we're not there, so we're playing catch up," said Manning.

Manning thinks the lack of donations this year is because people and organizations simply don't have anything left to give.

"I think it's a cumulative effect of all of the disasters of the past three years. There's a lot of donor fatigue out in the food industry because so many are stepping up to help others who are truly in need, but more from a disaster perspective than a hunger perspective," Manning said.

In an average month, the food bank is expected to distribute about a million pounds of food. Manning says that's not going to happen with their current stock.

"Our inventory is at dangerously low levels to where if we don't get food to catch up at some point we'll have to start rationing food to our agencies and reduce the amount we give to individuals," Manning said.

Manning says the best kind of donation you can make is a monetary donation, as the food bank can buy canned goods for a lot cheaper than you can at the grocery store.

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