The number of Rhode Islanders who lack access to enough food has reached a five-year high; over a third of state residents are experiencing food insecurity, according to a recent report from the Brown University School of Public Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield Rhode Island. Local food banks across the state say they are struggling to meet the increasing need, due, in part, to a noticeable decrease in food donations.
Can Rhode Island develop effective approaches to fighting hunger? Morning Host Luis Hernandez posed that question and others to the new CEO of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, Melissa Cherney.
Interview highlights
On the increasing number of food insecure Rhode Islanders
Melissa Cherney: The cost of everything is going up and wages are not keeping up with the high inflation, so people are not able to make ends meet like they used to. I think there’s this assumption that things would’ve gotten better after COVID, but really they haven’t. And we’re seeing such a dramatic decrease in donated food as well. So we’re in this perfect storm that people need us more than ever, but we have less resources and less food to give them than we did. We’re really having to get creative and work together, I think, with all of our community partners and all of our member agencies in new and innovative ways because our typical way of food-banking and feeding the hungry is not, probably, going to sustain us into the future, because we’re faced with more need and less food…