CINCINNATI — More Ohio families are relying on pantries and food banks, but they are losing money to help.

One food bank is dipping into its reserves to make sure families don't lose out too. 

What You Need To Know

  • Leaders at The Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati say they're seeing a 38% increase in demand with more than 600 Cincinnati area pantries relying on them

  • The food bank relies on about $2M from the federal government but the money has been put on pause 

  • The food bank's CEO says they are using money in reserves to keep getting as much food out to families and pantries 

Jim Albers is volunteering at the Freestore Foodbank warehouse. He's packing boxes of food for families facing uncertainty. 

“We try to volunteer twice a year where we're taking time out of our day to go out into the community and give back," Albers said.

He’s one of about 100 volunteers. All his co-workers, who he said are normally helping families manage money and investments. He said that, too, is is a source of a lot of uncertainty. 

“We do see people that are, have a lot more stress, whether it be just everything going on nationally, they're worried about their investments because a lot of the stresses you see that are impacting the economy, they impact people in different ways, and it impacts the markets in different ways," Albers said.

It’s the same thing leaders at the Freestore Foodbank are worried about after the food bank’s federal funding was put on pause. 

“Freestore got about, close to $2 million through the program, so we're hoping that we will be able to replace that," said Freestore Foodbank President/CEO Kurt Reiber. 

Reiber said they’re looking at ways to replace the funding because they’ve seen a 35% increase in demand, and about 600 pantries across the Cincinnati region are depending on them to fill the shelves. 

“What we're doing right now is that we are using our reserves, but we're also going out and doing some additional fundraising to try to replace those dollars that would be normally coming in," Reiber said. "We're also going out and trying to get more donations of food because we hope that will be a way for us to sort of bridge that gap."

So far, he said they haven’t had to change operations with that strategy. 

Volunteers are still getting as much food out as they can to help as many families as they can, all while hoping a solution is on the horizon.

“We feel that, you know, by time August comes that we'll have some resolution between USDA and Congress to figure out a farm bill that will be meaningful to not only the food banks but also the families that we serve," Reiber said.