Four years ago, as more than 700,000 New Jerseyans lost their jobs at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our community confronted another epidemic: widespread food insecurity. Since then, as the economy has rebounded, many assume there is less need for community support to combat hunger. But food insecurity is not a problem of the past — many families are still in crisis. Today, 1 in 10 New Jerseyans face hunger. No parent should worry about where their child’s next meal will come from: It’s time for our community to work together to strengthen our food aid system so that every family can access a healthy meal when they need it.
We’ve done it before. Our communities rallied together to respond to the sudden 50% spike in food insecurity four years ago. In the early days of the pandemic, food banks and pantries became essential parts of our state’s response. Individual donations surged as renewed attention was given to the food banks working tirelessly to keep nutritious meals on tables across the state. Over the last two years, this funding has largely dried up – even as demand for meals has remained high. In 2022, as COVID-related benefits ended, 73% of food banks nationally reported more people seeking help than the year before.
We’ve learned valuable lessons on how to combat food insecurity, and now we need the will — from the government, nonprofits and individual donors — to ensure a robust network of food banks and pantries can bolster our state’s food security. It’s clear many nonprofits on the frontlines need more capacity to best serve their local communities. As part of our work with the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, The Tepper Foundation released a report detailing urgent needs to buttress our state’s food aid system. This included equipment updates—from updating refrigerators for food storage to expanding fleets of vehicles to ensure food can reach the right destinations. There is also a need to recruit the next generation of distribution volunteers, as well as prepare disaster response plans for future crises.
More funding is needed to meet these needs, but already many nonprofits are facing a pinch. One of our grantee partners, Love Ministries, a Camden-based food pantry, shared with us that while they saw a sharp decrease in donations last year, they also saw an increased need for services so drastic that people began spending the night outside in line to guarantee they received a meal. Camden has been designated as the top food desert in New Jersey, and nearly half of the city’s population experienced food insecurity in recent years.
Individual donations to local food banks and pantries are critical to helping more families have access to nutritious food, but to enact longer-term systemic change, the state government and the nonprofit sector must work in tandem to enhance our state’s resilience to spikes in hunger. In our conversations with food security leaders, we have heard that in addition to more funding being needed to meet families’ urgent food needs, there are also untapped federal dollars that can help improve our food aid system and better meet this demand in the long run.
That’s why we recently launched our newest initiative with New Jersey’s Office of the Food Security Advocate: the Food Security Access Fund. This fund offers two types of support: nonprofits can receive funding to build capacity to qualify for, and secure, existing government grants, or they can be paired with an expert navigator who can help them identify and apply for those dollars. We selected 16 leading food organizations — such as nourish.NJ, Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Northern New Jersey and more — to receive this support, which will better equip them to make transformative, lasting improvements to our food aid system.
The Food Security Access Fund is a first-of-its-kind model for New Jersey that brings together nonprofits and government in important ways, pooling funding from philanthropic organizations and tapping into expertise across sectors. Through this collaboration, the fund creates a robust, statewide community of partners that will grow over time and support a bold vision for addressing food insecurity and poverty in New Jersey.
We know that food insecurity is not the only pressing challenge for New Jersey families, but investing in our food aid system is a smart start to addressing a myriad of issues, particularly amid rising costs. Our partners at Nourish.NJ have told us that their food programs are often the entry point that leads community members to access other services, including housing support and mental health care. These issues are complex and cannot be tackled in silos. When we strengthen our state’s food security systems, we find more ways to improve the lives of families across New Jersey.
We can’t solve a problem of this magnitude alone – we all have a role to play. From state government and community-based nonprofits to family foundations and individual donors, we must step up now to help our fellow New Jerseyans and ensure no one goes hungry.