Hurricane Ida Relief

Second Harvest is grateful to have made it through another hurricane seaon without a major storm impacting Louisiana, but the work of recovery from Hurricane Ida in the hardest-hit areas continues. This includes Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes and Grand Isle. Through the generous grantmaking of the American Red Cross, we have been able to assist our community partners in this region with essential capacity-building items to replace things lost in the storm such as refrigerators, freezers, shelving, and technology. These will also help these partners be better prepared and resilient when future storms hit. 

Second Harvest, like countless other organizations across the nation, continues to be plagued by the effects of inflation. This is not only impacting our expenses on everything from food and fuel to equipment and vehicles, but also intensely affecting the amount of food we have on hand to distribute to our neighbors. Our two main sources of food are large-scale donations from retailers such as Walmart and Winn-Dixie, and USDA commodities from The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). Over the past year, the amount of food received from these sources has decreased by 52%. Grocery stores became much leaner with ordering during the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning they have fewer items remaining for donation. The availability of food from the USDA’s TEFAP program has been inconsistent and unpredictable in addition to being lower in volume due to supply chain issues across the board.  These decreases in the availability of food are occurring at the same time the number of people seeking Second Harvest’s help is increasing, as families are impacted by the financial domino effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple hurricanes, and rising inflation.

While the USDA is projecting a 13% increase in the availability and distribution of TEFAP food this year and Feeding America is looking at new procurement strategies for its member food banks, the level of service our neighbors need will not be possible in the coming year without additional support.