photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

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

For most kids, summer break is a time of relaxation. But hundreds of kids in Lawrence have instead spent their time off school so far seeking crucial food assistance.

Just Food has served 1,807 unique kids ages 0 to 18 between May 25 and July 19, Community Access Manager Charles Shively told the Journal-World Wednesday morning. And many of those kids have visited more than once, contributing to a total of 5,849 visits to the food bank by young people in that age range since the last day of the 2022-23 school year.

“This is one of our busiest portions of the year,” Shively said. “July and August, it tends to pick up a lot. Last Tuesday, we did 451 households in a single day, which is close to a record … In terms of just normal weeks, that was one of our highest. We do see this rise because children are out of school; they’re not getting breakfast and lunch consistently.”

That 451 figure isn’t far off from the numbers Just Food was seeing around this time last year. At one point last August, the food bank was setting its third record of the year for patrons served in one day with 478 households — or 1,186 individuals.

That this trend has continued is a reflection of a number of factors; a newsletter that Just Food sent to supporters last week said one of the causes was the expiration of extra COVID-era Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

But it’s not just kids who are visiting the food bank more lately — it’s everyone. Shively said that as of Wednesday, Just Food had seen nearly 9,500 visits in total since school let out, across roughly 30 or so days the food bank has had open hours. And on a broader timeline, about 2,000 households have visited Just Food for the first time since the start of this year.

That problem is only exacerbated as Just Food contends with a steep decrease in donations, Shively said. While donations from food drives have increased by about 900 pounds from Jan. 1 to June 30 compared to the same period last year, general donations stemming from food recovery efforts like pick-ups from grocery stores have decreased drastically — by about 270,000 pounds.

“If you go into our pantry, you can see that those shelves are less consistently full, because we are seeing less donations from individual households and community members,” Shively said. “There’s just a whole food shortage in the supply chain right now, and costs are always going up. With costs going up, one of the first things that goes is usually donations and extra things like that, so that’s where we’re seeing that main decrease from.”

Keeping things stocked and maintaining the pantry in general has been a challenge, Shively said. The repurposed, ready-to-eat meals that have been produced under the direction of Sourcing and Production Manager Chetan Michie in Just Food’s “Chop Shop” since last year help the food bank maintain its supply while simultaneously cutting back on food waste, but that alone can’t fill the entire gap.

Shively said Just Food also gets some help from TEFAP, the state’s Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides free USDA commodity foods to low-income households throughout Kansas, shipped to participating organizations for distribution five to six times per year. But that, too, is limited because of its federal- and state-mandated income guidelines, Shively said, even though Just Food doesn’t have income guidelines itself.

“It helps a little bit in terms of the donations going down,” Shively said. “We get once-a-month donations from Harvesters from it, but those do come from the state to Harvesters and then to other organizations.”

Another strategy being employed to move the needle is Just Food’s recently launched Summer Hunger Fundraising Campaign. According to the campaign’s online donation page, it’s raised $3,461 so far — about 17% of its listed $20,000 goal. Shively said monetary donations are typically the best way to help the food bank, since staff members can use their connections with suppliers and other agencies to stretch those dollars further than they could stretch individual food donations.

But Shively said Just Food is always open to taking whatever help anyone is able to offer, be it a monetary contribution or otherwise. That’s especially the case when thinking ahead to the rest of the summer; he said it’s hard to predict, but demand at Just Food historically has gone up toward the end of July from year to year.

“… We are seeing it rise right now,” Shively said. “If you came Tuesday morning, which is our first open day of the week, the line that you’d see before 9 a.m. is very long and getting longer and longer from week to week. I do think the demand will go up through the summer, for sure.”