With inflation at a 40-year high, families are stretching their dollar farther than ever. Some are skipping meals just to pay for other household expenses, pushing them to local food pantries, that are also feeling the squeeze.
“From the time we open to the time we close we do see a line of people,” said Carlos Roldan, director of the Father English food pantry in Paterson. “I come here at 7:30 in the morning and I already have a line of thirty, thirty-five people waiting for me.”
Roldan said food banks and pantries like his in Paterson are seeing more demand and more new faces but not enough donations to keep up. The pantry went from serving about 5,000 people a month to more than 20,000 people a month and about 1,000 bags of food every day, he said.
At the United Community Corporation Food Pantry in Newark, which is seeing nearly 25,000 families a month, demand is so high a mobile food truck and free community refrigerators are being used to expand outreach.
