photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Just Food's home at 1000 E. 11th St. is pictured Friday, March 24, 2023.

In 2023, Just Food served 7,213 unique households and 18,026 unique individuals, all while recovering 584,255 pounds of food.

Among that group have been the 300 to 400 patrons visiting the food bank for the first time each month, who contributed to a grand total of 123,000 pantry visits throughout 2023. Those visitors were fed by those hundreds of thousands of pounds of recovered food, some of which Just Food repurposes into ready-made meals, and by the more than $40,000 in monthly food purchases that Just Food makes to keep its shelves stocked.

Those are all numbers that Just Food Executive Director Aundrea Walker shared with the Journal-World this past week. Walker and the staff at Just Food don’t have to look at a spreadsheet to see the scale of the need for food assistance in Douglas County, though.

“The line is usually out the door almost all day on Tuesday (the first day the pantry is open each week),” Walker told the Journal-World Thursday. “We try to get people in and out as quickly as possible so people don’t have to stand in the cold or the heat, depending on the month. It’s just astonishing the amount of people that need the services right now, and how many of those people come here on a weekly basis.”

Walker said right now, the need for food assistance is greater than it’s ever been — and Just Food is serving more people than it ever has. At the moment the agency is doing well, but Walker said resources are thin and there’s not much wiggle room before the pantry’s shelves can become bare.

Some challenges always exist for the food bank, such as the bump in visitors that Walker said Just Food receives each summer, coinciding with the break for schoolchildren. In 2023, that was true again to the tune of 1,807 unique kids from birth to 18 served between May 25 and July 19.

But the number of households Just Food was serving did not trend down again after the busy summer; Walker said the nonprofit went from serving an average of 2,200 households a month in May 2023 to 2,683 in December.

Other challenges, meanwhile, have to do with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of inflation and expiring pandemic aid in 2022 contributed to Just Food breaking its record for patrons served in one day three times in one year by August. Increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits reverted back to pre-pandemic levels in Kansas during the first half of 2023, which introduced yet another cost-related hurdle.

The difficulties of the past few years are still having an effect today, Walker said. SNAP benefits rolled back not long before the start of summer, further amplifying the need already present at that time, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said at the time that meant an average of 97,000 households across the state would see an average reduction of $196 per month in aid moving forward.

Families with students continue to feel the stress of the end of another pandemic-era program: universal free school meals.

“We’re definitely seeing where all households are having to go back to paying for lunches, and that puts a strain on families,” Walker said.

Then there are the continued effects of inflation, which Walker said are manifesting in more than a 23% increase in costs at the grocery store. In addition, manufacturers are cutting down on the amount of food they put into their packages by a few ounces. That’s a change that most people wouldn’t notice, Walker said, but Just Food does, because the agency conducts a regular analysis of how much it’s spending on food per pound.

During the pandemic, the food bank was able to procure food for around $0.89 per pound. Right now, Walker said food purchasing averages closer to $1.30 per pound, for the same orders as during the pandemic.

“That’s of extreme significance, and that’s due to inflation of cost, but also the reality is, when they’re (packaging) 4 ounces less per item in there, that adds up,” Walker said. “People aren’t thinking about that because people aren’t buying in bulk like we are, so we notice those things. That’s pretty common in the grocery store, as well.”

Those are all trends Walker said she expects will continue in 2024, and Just Food plans to continue to lean on its food recovery efforts, in collaboration with local partner restaurants and grocery stores. She said that’ll mean “hunkering down” and recovering as much food as possible locally in an effort to cut down on waste.

But all that doesn’t mean there’s no room for optimism as Just Food looks toward the rest of 2024. Walker said the agency hired a new director of development, Ali Curbow, during summer 2023, and that Curbow has come up with innovative ideas for community events this year. Walker said that’ll be a particular focus in 2024 — engaging with the community more and harnessing community partnerships.

“We’re going to continue to partner,” Walker said. “Community collaboration is definitely key, and having our community support us is definitely the number one way that we’ll continue to move forward.”