The longest government shutdown in American history resulted in a big spike in demand for food assistance. Now, even though the shutdown has been over for more than a week and federal aid has resumed, the demand hasn’t subsided much.
Harvesters Community Food Network is a hub for assistance in the Kansas City area, providing food and household products to more than 900 nonprofit agencies, including food pantries, community kitchens, shelters and more.
KCUR's Up To Date headed to the Harvesters warehouse for a live broadcast on Friday. Valerie Nicholson-Watson, Harvesters' interim president and CEO, said that this has been an extremely challenging stretch for the organization.
"Clearly, it was challenging and stressful for those people who were personally impacted, but it also impacted those of us who are assistance providers because we saw the need go up tremendously," Nicholson-Watson said. "Some of our agencies reported that their requests just doubled overnight."
For a food bank as large as Harvesters, a lot goes into making sure families receive the food that they need.
"We refer to ourselves as a well-oiled machine, and that's because we're very, very organized," Nicholson-Watson said. "We optimize the use of technology. Our partners play a big role as well. They actually order their food from our menu, and we will assign delivery dates. Most of our food is delivered by our truck drivers, who they are always very happy to see, and our drivers really take pride in that. So it's just a matter of having the logistics and following the processes that we have in place."
When Harvesters director of community impact Jury Paulson was asked if he was worried about not meeting the high demand, he responded, "You can't have that mentality."
"We've got to continue to do whatever we can, to look at things in new ways, turn over different rocks for different resources, and continue to have a positive mindset moving forward. Wherever we can build new partnerships or strengthen old ones, we won't give up," he said. "Then again, all we can do is all we can do with the resources that we have, and we continue to ask the community to support us in that regard."
- Valerie Nicholson-Watson, Harvesters Community Food Network interim president and CEO
- Sarah Biles, Harvesters Community Food Network director of communications
- Jury Paulson, Harvesters Community Food Network director of community impact
- Cierra Howe, Harvesters Community Food Network special projects content manager
