WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Mid-Ohio Market food bank in Columbus had to ditch its grocery store feel and replace it with curbside pickup when the pandemic started one year ago.
Matt Austin, the manager, said a moment early in the lockdown when he placed food in a family’s car still sticks with him.
“I wave and say goodbye. And I look over to the backseat and there’s a little girl, probably about 4 years old, and she has handwritten on a piece of paper ‘thank you,’ and held it up to the window,” Austin said in a Zoom interview this week.
Austin told Spectrum News that COVID-19 placed a new spotlight on how food is an immediate need that can’t be pushed off when someone loses their income like maybe a rent payment could be.
“When it comes to your child saying I would like dinner tonight, you can’t exactly make an arrangement or come up with an alternative solution other than direct food assistance,” he said.
On Thursday, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing about food insecurity where the bureau president testified about the importance of investing in farmers, especially during the pandemic.
“When we bolster their economies, we feed people,” Zippy Duvall told lawmakers. “And you’re exactly right, starving farmers can’t feed starving people.”
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was also brought up in the hearing.
According to state data, over 1.5 million Ohioans received SNAP benefits in December.
The latest COVID-19 relief plan extends a 15% increase in those benefits through September, but advocates like, Matt Austin, whose organization remains busy, argue more people should be eligible.
“You ask anyone who works in food banks, they will say the same thing,” Austin said. “The most effective thing the government can do to help hunger is to expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.”