GROVE CITY, Ohio — Just imagine distributing more than 77.5 million pounds of food.
The Mid Ohio Food Collective did just that, last year, giving to more than 168,000 families in 20 counties.
This year, that number is going up.
“Oh yeah,” Malik Perkins said. “Everything is significantly up this year.”
Perkins, who is the public relations manager, says from January to May of this year 95,000 families have been served.
“During the height of the pandemic you had a lot of families who ended up becoming food insecure, some of them were right on the line and it was already being projected that it was gonna take them a few years to recover,” Perkins said. “In the middle of that recovery, now we’re seeing record inflation, record gas prices, record cost for rent.”
Inflation and higher costs lead more people to ask for help.
“Recently, we had a record day where we served more than one thousand families at this site, alone,” he said. “In one day, yes.”
Monday, Columbus City Council offering that hand of help by approving $1 million in emergency funding to the collective to help meet the urgent and overwhelming needs of families facing food insecurity.
“Roughly every dollar we receive can purchase more than four dollars in groceries,” Perkins said. “So, that dollar goes a very long way.”