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PHOENIX – Long lines are back at food banks around the US as working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turn to handouts to help feed their families.

With gas prices soaring along with food costs, many people are looking for charity food for the first time, and more are arriving on foot.

Inflation in the US is at a 40-year high and gas prices have been increasing since April 2020, with the average cost across the country briefly reaching $5 a gallon in June. Rapidly rising rents and the end of federal COVID-19 relief have also taken a financial toll.

The food banks, which had begun to see some relief as people returned to work after pandemic shutdowns, are struggling to meet the latest need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute , grocery store donations are fading and cash donations aren’t going nearly as far.

Tomasina John was among hundreds of families in several lanes of cars that circled the block one recent day outside the St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. John said her family had never visited a food bank before because her husband easily supported her and their four children with his construction work.

“But it’s really impossible to get by now without some help,” said John, who traveled with a neighbor to share gas costs as they idled under the blazing desert sun. “The prices are far too high.”

Jesus Pascual was also in the queue.

“It’s a real struggle,” said Pascual, a janitor who estimated that he spends hundreds of dollars a month on groceries for him, his wife and their five children between the ages of 11 and 19.

The same scene is being repeated across the country, where food bank workers are anticipating a rough summer and keeping ahead of demand.

The surge in food prices comes after state governments ended COVID-19 disaster declarations that temporarily allowed more benefits under SNAP, the federal food stamp program that covers about 40 million Americans .

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to get better overnight,” said Katie Fitzgerald, president and chief operating officer of the national food bank network Feeding America. “The demand really complicates the supply challenges.”

American feeding officials say second-quarter data won’t be ready until August, but they’re hearing anecdotally from food banks across the country that demand is skyrocketing.

The Phoenix food bank’s main distribution center delivered food packages to 4,271 families during the third week in June, a 78% increase over the 2,396 families served during the same week last year, said St. Mary’s spokesman Jerry Brown.

More than 900 families line up at the distribution center every weekday for a government emergency food box stuffed with items like canned beans, peanut butter and rice, Brown said. St. Mary’s adds products purchased with cash donations, as well as food provided by local supermarkets such as bread, carrots and pork chops for a combined package worth about $75.

Distribution by the Community Food Bank of Alameda County in Northern California has ticked up since a pandemic hit at the start of this year, increasing from 890 households served on the third Friday in January to 1,410 households on the third Friday in June, said marketing director Michael Altfest.

At the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the US where food distribution levels earlier in the pandemic peaked at a staggering 1 million pounds per day, an average of 610,000 pounds are now being distributed each day.

That’s up from around 500,000 pounds a day before the pandemic, spokeswoman Paula Murphy said.

Murphy said cash donations haven’t eased, but inflation ensures they don’t go as far.

Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand had caught them off guard.

“Last year, we had expected a drop in demand for 2022 because the economy has been doing so well,” said Michael Flood, CEO of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. “This issue with inflation came on quite suddenly.”

“Many of these are working people who did well during the pandemic and maybe even saw their wages go up,” said Flood. “But they have also seen food prices rise beyond their budgets.”

The Los Angeles bank gave away about 30 million pounds of food in the first three months of this year, slightly less than the previous quarter but still far more than the 22 million pounds given away in the first quarter of 2020 .

Feeding Fitzgerald of America is calling on USDA and Congress to find a way to restore hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods lost recently with the end of several temporary programs to provide food to people in need. USDA goods, which can generally represent as much as 30% of the food the banks distribute, accounted for more than 40% of all food distributed in fiscal year 2021 by the Feeding America network .

“There is an urgent need for the public sector to buy more food now,” Fitzgerald said.

During the Trump administration, USDA bought several billion dollars in pork, apples, milk, potatoes and other products in a program that donated most of it to food banks. The “Buying Food & Distribution Program” designed to help American farmers harmed by tariffs and other practices of US trading partners has since ended. $1.2 billion was authorized for fiscal year 2019 and another $1.4 billion was authorized for fiscal 2020.

Another temporary USDA “Farmers for Families” program that provided emergency relief provided more than 155 million food boxes to families in need across the US during the height of the pandemic before ending on May 31, 2021.

A USDA spokesperson noted that the agency is using $400 million from the Build Back Better initiative to establish agreements with states, territories and tribal governments to purchase food from local, regional and underserved producers that can be donated to food banks, schools and programs feed others.

For now, there is plenty of food, but there may not be in the future, said Michael G. Manning, president and CEO of the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank in Louisiana. He said high fuel costs also made it much more expensive to collect and deliver food.

The USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which included Farmers for Families, was a “boon” for the Alameda County Community Food Bank, providing 5 billion pounds of goods over a year, the Altfest spokeswoman said.

“So losing that was a big blow,” he said.

Altfest said as many as 10% of people now looking for food are first timers, and an increasing number are showing up on foot rather than in cars to save gas.

“The food they get from us helps them save budgets that are already under pressure for other expenses like gas, rent, diapers and baby formula,” she said.

Meanwhile, food purchases from the bank have jumped from a monthly average of $250,000 before the pandemic to as high as $1.5 million now due to food prices. Swinging gasoline costs forced the bank to increase its fuel budget by 66%, Altfest said.

Supply chain issues are also a problem, requiring the food bank to become more aggressive with procurement.

“We used to reorder when our inventory dropped to three weeks worth, now we reorder up to six weeks out,” Altfest said.

She said the food bank has already ordered and paid for whole chickens, stuffing, cranberries and other holiday feast items it will distribute for Thanksgiving, the busiest time of the year.

At the Mexican American Opportunity Institute in Montebello east of Los Angeles, workers say they see many families along with seniors like Diane Martinez, who joined on foot one recent morning.

Some of the hundreds of mostly Spanish-speaking recipients had cars parked nearby. They carried cloth bags, cardboard boxes or pushcarts to pick up their food packages from the delivery site served by the Los Angeles bank.

“Food prices are so high and they’re getting higher every day,” said Martinez, who expressed gratitude for the bags of black beans, ground beef and other foods. “I’m so glad they can help us.”

AP video journalist Eugene Garcia from Montebello, California contributed.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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