Food bank keeping busy

CLOVIS - The Food Bank of Eastern New Mexico has provided and supported food programs for 37 years, and continues to do so at its Brady Street building just north of the city's Public Works and Animal Shelter buildings.

The current COVID-19 pandemic almost guarantees the food bank's 38th year will be one of its busiest and most vital. While the neighboring city buildings are closed to the public due to state public health orders, the food bank is seeing more traffic than ever.

In an average week, with distributions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Brady Street location, the food bank gets 100 daily clients - the organization's dignified term for families seeking assistance. Last week, Operations Manager Tayler Fields said, it was approximately 140 clients.

Simply put, Fields said, "people who haven't traditionally shown up to the food bank are now showing up to the food bank. The demand has just surged over the last two weeks."

The newest visitors, Fields said, largely come from the retail and food service industries. Many of their employers were either non-essential businesses forced to shutter or restaurants that reduced staff needs with in-person dining eliminated.

While the building is closed to the public, the seven full-time employees and cadre of volunteers are still as busy as ever getting food to clients. A two-lane drive-through system has been established for staff to deliver food and keep clients inside their vehicles. To serve as many families as possible, clients are limited to one visit per month.

The first week of social distancing orders was the most difficult logistically and emotionally, Food Bank Executive Director Dianna Sprague said, because staff saw a growing client base while dealing with state and federal restrictions that kept tightening.

There have been numerous impacts to the distribution chains. Donations from grocery stores are unsurprisingly down, Sprague said, because "there's nothing there to donate." Most of the food pantries the food bank supplies have shut down because the locations lack the staff and volunteers. With public school campuses closed, the food bank has shut down its backpack program and used those supplies elsewhere.

Despite the spike in customers, and more spikes coming, Sprague is optimistic supply chains won't be exhausted.

"The majority of our food comes from USDA (Department of Agriculture)," Sprague said, "so as long as they are still delivering we don't expect to run out."

The food bank is working with La Casa in Portales on a first and third Friday drive-through distribution, with its first one held last week. Applicants are asked to remain in their car, provide proof of eligibility and have space in the car trunk for placement. The distributions begin at 10 a.m. and end when supplies are exhausted. The first one ended around noon.

The top two ways citizens can help the food bank, Sprague said, are:

• Volunteering: She recommended working through volunteerenm.org for coordination purposes. Many businesses previously sent employees to the food bank for community service, and during the pandemic some businesses have simply paid employees to help at the food bank instead of the in-person work they can't do. Volunteers largely take bulk donations and purchases and separate them into family-ready packs of shelf-stable canned and dry goods, dairy, produce and eggs.

• Donating: On donations, cash works better because the food bank has supply chains and purchasing power the average citizen doesn't. For instance, Sprague spent 99 cents on a 12-box case of cereal that stores would sell for two to three times that per box. Donation methods are listed at fbenm.org.