Moving food costs a lot of money, according to Upper Susitna Food Pantry Executive Director LouAnne Carroll-Tysdal. The Pantry will receive $5,000 in Community Assistance Program funds to help cover those costs. Trapper Creek residents voted to provide the funding through their Community Council’s CAP this year.
Carroll-Tysdal says the Pantry shops in the Lower Valley at least twice per week at the Food Bank of Alaska and the Mat-Su Food Bank. She says they also source food from across the country to help keep the Pantry well-stocked.
The Pantry transports about 200,000 pounds of food each year to feed Upper Valley residents. And the number of families supported through the Pantry is growing. Earlier this year the number had increased by 21 percent. January and February are usually the highest number of families supported and the number usually drops in July, according to Carroll-Tysdal.
She says they’re seeing lots of new families signing up and also seeing families that haven’t used the Pantry in a few years coming back now. Families can visit the food pantry twice per month. She says the program also supports the High School Food Pantry and most visitors to that are not members of families using regular Pantry services.
Carroll-Tysdal stresses that most of the families visiting the Pantry have working members of the households with full-time employment. They just don’t make enough to get by.
Food pantries were once regarded as a supplement to other benefits, but have now become a normal part of some households.
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