CINCINNATI, Ohio — Masks, a temperature, and a series of health questions are the new normal for any volunteer hoping to give their time and effort to the Freestore Foodbank.

What You Need To Know

  • Freestore Foodbank opened to volunteers in October

  • Pandemic hunger has stabilized, but is still high

  • School closures have changed the way they serve children

  • The National Guard will help until December

The Cincinnati warehouse opened up to volunteers October 1, marking the first time they were allowed in since the pandemic hit. The food bank has been relying solely on the National Guard since mid March.

Craig Daniels is one of the first volunteers. He came with a small group from Furniture Fair to help pack boxes for hungry families.

“Freestore Foodbank’s always been good for the community, so we like to help out companies that have similar values,” he said.

Daniels said the company likes to spend the end of the year giving back, and with hunger still on the rise, he said he and his coworkers wanted to take a more hands-on role at Freestore.

“We just started partnering with them a little heavier this year,” he said.

Food insecurity has persisted throughout the pandemic and food banks predict that trend will continue for months as the economy slowly recovers. In 2019, the food bank served about 125,000 people a month. Post-COVID, they were serving 198,000.

While Freestore reports those numbers are stabilizing, they’re still well above pre-pandemic numbers, and children are among the most affected.

Feeding America reports one in four Ohio children are food insecure and in southwestern Ohio, Freestore Foodbank partners with area schools to make sure kids have enough to eat when they come home for the weekend. The kits are called power packs.

This year the food bank and local schools have worked together to give out more than seven thousand power packs a week. In a usual year, the packs would go home with kids on Friday, but with school schedules and after school programming in flux, the program has had to change the way it delivers the packs to remain a constant for families like Melinda Keeton’s.

“Even when we were quarantined and out of school, they were still giving them to my children or delivering them to my house or we would pick them up or whatever,” she said.

Keeton lost her job in food service in March when the shut down began.

“With six kids, it’s a lot, so it definitely filled in the voids where you know our food assistance and unemployment obviously doesn’t cover everything,” she said.

Four of her kids are back to school and now get the packs whenever there’s scheduled break from in-person learning. Still, Keeton said it’s a relief to know no matter what changes, they’ll always have something on their plates.

“Right as we’re planning to go back to work, the numbers are going up and you know my children are probably going to be put back on virtual again so having these packs and the food assistance really helps us,” she said.

To keep up with that need, Freestore said the returning volunteers have been a big help. Through the fall, they plan to schedule guardsmen and women in the morning and groups of 25 of fewer volunteers in the afternoon.

The food bank will need a reliable volunteer schedule to prepare for the National Guard to leave in December.

“We’re happy to hear that we could help out,” Daniels said.

As long as the need remains high, families like Keeton’s said they’ll need a steady flow of helping hands to keep food on the table.

“Even prior to the pandemic, it was hard, but right now it’s definitely hard to support families,” she said.