PEORIA Ill. (WMBD)– For the first time in 40 years, inflation rates are at an all-time high, as a direct result many food pantries are seeing more people in need of their services.
Families are struggling to pay for meals after already paying for necessities such as rent, utilities, back-to-school shopping, and health care.
Wayne Cannon manages the Peoria Area Food Bank and said families are being forced to live paycheck to paycheck.
“Just to feed their families until the next paycheck comes in because whether it’s gas, buying school clothes right now, utility bills going up, it’s affecting all of us,” said Cannon.
Since last June, the Peoria Area Food Bank is down 500,000 lbs of food. Due to this drop in product, many local food banks are forced to limit the amount of meat and protein items they can send to the pantries to distribute.
Warehouse service manager Couri Thomas said the pantries are in demand for many products.
“All of our pantries are demanding more product. More meat, more canned goods, dry items, things like that. So our pantries are really seeing an uptick right now,” said Thomas.
All food banks and pantries accept monetary and food donations.
