The Seasonal Cycle of Fighting Hunger

September is Hunger Action Month, a time to raise awareness about the prevalence and reality of hunger in America. I firmly believe that the way we think about hunger is the primary obstacle to solving it, so this month I am focusing on challenging the assumptions we’ve been conditioned to accept, and offer new tools for taking those ideas out into the world.

We have just started getting real autumnal weather here in Portland, Oregon. Heavy dark clouds unleashed a torrential downpour the other evening, and it’s starting to stay cool enough to keep my socks and sweatshirt on all day- a sure sign that summer is ending (I’m so ready!) Along with the weather, kids are in school again and it feels like my neighborhood is settling back down into a standard work routine.

In alignment with the season, anti-hunger organizations are also gearing up for the next phase of their work. For many nonprofits, September through December are the busiest months of the year thanks to holiday drives, donation campaigns, and increased need for services.

In my food pantries, it always very much felt like the transition from August to September went from 0 to 100 mph overnight as the needs of clients, donors, and volunteers all skyrocket simultaneously. This year is likely to be no different as our nation continues to face inflation, inaccessible housing costs, and a host of other challenges that leaves too many people food insecure.

While hunger is an increasingly chronic problem in the United States, there remains a certain seasonality to our efforts to fight it.

The needs of our neighbors and our ability to offer emergency food services fluctuate based on the time of year in a way that may not be immediately apparent to an onlooker.

Fall

With summer over and routines reestablished, it often seems like a regular food pantry visit returns to the schedule for many families. Food pantries often experience significant increases in clients from September through December.

In addition, the arrival of cold and harsh weather increases the cost of utilities which quickly depletes household budgets. Pantries and anti-hunger organizations see the greatest number of requests for nonfood items like rental assistance, bus passes, and warm clothing during this time. Few pantries have adequate resources to offer meaningful support on these, which increases the need and desire to give out as much food as possible.

Luckily, the onset of soup weather often increases shoppers’ interest in canned goods that they can store away for an emergency or supplement with the odds and ends they find at the pantry.

This season also includes numerous holidays that specifically celebrate certain foods. For many households who are just getting by, accessing something like a turkey or ham may be beyond their reach. Food pantries will often see clients who only visit once a year for these specialty items.

How to support your local pantry:

Sign up to volunteer! You’ve got time to become an operations expert before the chaos of the holidays really hits.

Donate food. Many pantries are already making plans for their holiday distributions, so consider reaching out to find out what communities are served and what foods help them celebrate their culture and connections.

Winter

Increasingly bad weather makes waiting in line and shopping at a food pantry more difficult, which means pantries often see more unpredictable attendance. Additionally, in the same way that shoppers clean out a grocery store in the face of a winter storm, pantries experience the same. The weather continues to demand increased spending on utilities, clothing, and holiday gifts which amplifies the challenges that food pantry clients face.

This is the time of year when people are most interested in volunteering, which places huge demands on employees to facilitate volunteer orientation, training, and ongoing support. Be sympathetic if staff are slow to get back to your inquiries about volunteering and remember that a thousand other people have just done the same thing too!

How to support your local pantry:

Donate nonperishable funds or foods, including holiday specific foods.

Set a reminder in your phone to sign up to volunteer in January or later in the year, when the onslaught of volunteers evaporates but food insecurity continues.

Spring

In my experience, spring is the most routine and predictable season for fighting hunger. Many people are struggling to financially recover from the winter holidays, which means pantries have more consistent visits from clients.

Improving weather makes interruptions in food supply less likely and makes it more pleasant for clients to wait in line and access the pantry.

How to support your local pantry:

Host a food drive. The holidays often clean pantries out of their staples and specialty items, and it takes a while to recover.

Sign up to volunteer during spring break, when many volunteers go on vacation.

Summer

All the data indicates that food insecurity rates tend to increase during the summer when kids are out of school and lose access to free meals (although hopefully this is less likely with the implementation of SUN Bucks). Anecdotally, I’ve always found that my food pantries instead saw a drop in attendance, which I attribute to more erratic schedules with kids home from school and hot weather that makes it more uncomfortable to travel and wait in line.

How to support:

Volunteer! This is the time that volunteers go on vacation, which means more pantries are scrambling to meet their minimum staffing needs. Unfortunately, people generally only think about seasonal volunteering during the winter holidays, but if you really want to make a difference, summer is the time!

If your garden has excess produce, many food pantries will enthusiastically accept it. Just remember that if you don’t want to eat it (like wormy apples or nickel-sized green tomatoes), pantry clients don’t want to either!

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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