Claire, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
-How are you? -Mm. Thank you.
I'm-I'm really pleased to be here,
uh, under unfortunate circumstances,
but so pleased that you gave us an opportunity
to-to, uh, address your audience.
Oh, I-I'll be honest, I feel like the opportunity is ours,
because I've been reading through, um,
some of the material about Feeding America,
and it is honestly ridiculous
that A) how many people you need to feed
and also the fact that most people
don't even know that this is happening.
Tell us a little bit about Feeding America and what you do.
So we're a network of 200 food banks around the United States.
We partner with 60,000 food pantries,
soup kitchens, meal programs,
um, in normal times, with two million volunteers.
And we distribute over four billion meals
to over 40 million people,
and that's before this crisis.
So, to your point,
um, there's been a really serious food crisis
in this country before this pandemic,
and that crisis has only been made worse because of it.
Is there a misconception around who needs food
and who a food bank serves?
There absolutely is.
So, for instance, now,
the vast majority of the increase that we're seeing
would be among people who never imagined
that they'd ever need us.
I mean, the Federal Reserve Bank has estimated
that the typical American does not have
more than $400 to address an emergency.
So you miss one paycheck
and you're in the middle of a crisis
in the middle of a pandemic,
which a lot of people are experiencing right now.
And even before this crisis,
sometimes just, uh, completely unexpected things happen
-to people in their lives. -Mm-hmm.
And, as a result, they find themselves
in a position of really needing help,
and our network tries hard to make certain
to serve them with dignity and respect,
because we know that so many of us
could find ourselves in the exact same position one day.
We hope it wouldn't happen.
Uh, but should it happen,
we want to be there to serve people
with-with dignity and respect that they deserve.
You talk about feeding 40 million before coronavirus,
the number jumping up by as many as 17 million
in the coming month or months.
How are you scaling up?
We are reading about food slowly, um,
diminishing across the country and even across the world
as global supply chains start to break down.
Are you managing with this? Are you coping?
And what are you doing to scale up
in getting food to the people who need it?
Well, we're working very actively
with farmers and industry leaders.
And we're also working with the government as well,
the Department of Agriculture, where we're-we're getting close,
I believe, to a meaningful partnership
where we really just turn this whole distribution system
on its ear and address the here and now challenges
and connect the dots,
because I don't know that our biggest issue
is a lack of food.
I think our biggest issue is
if we don't have an infrastructure
for delivering food in this new environment.
And we're working hard to connect those dots
so that we can be much better positioned,
uh, to use the excess that exists in certain places
and fill in the gaps that clearly exist in others.
There may be some people watching this right now,
thinking, "Claire, I-I appreciate
"what Feeding America is doing,
"but I don't know if I can contribute $100
to help a family get, um, meals."
What would you say to them?
I'd say to them that we value one dollar,
um, two dollars, three dollars.
The key is to give what you can.
Um, whatever you can provide,
I can assure you this,
that we take every investment
as a sacred trust in us and our network.
-Mm. -And in our COVID-19 fund,
which we established, and you can go to FeedingAmerica.org
and there you can donate.
If you have the ability to donate, then do.
If you don't, then, o-of course,
some people simply can't do that right now.
But if you can, FeedingAmerica.org.
If you donate to that COVID-19 fund,
100% of the proceeds--
no administrative costs, nothing--
100% goes directly back into communities
to make certain that we're feeding people who need us.
A second thing though that I strongly encourage people
to do as well is to go to the same website,
and if you type in your--
We have a-a food bank locator.
And if you put in the zip code for the community
that you have the biggest interest in helping,
you can go out and find a food bank
that's serving that community,
and sometimes what they need is volunteers.
They're in a very good position,
I guess, is the best way for me to say it,
at the community level to help--
you know how to help the community
that you care the most about.
Well, I'm hoping that you get all of the help that you need
on the federal level and from anybody who can help.
Thank you so much for taking the time today.
Uh, I hope as many people as possible come out
and help Feeding America to feed everybody in America.
Thank you for your time.