Butner sat down with Community Impact and discussed hardships the food bank faced in 2020 and its plans for the future. Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Could you describe the Tarrant Area Food Bank?
The Tarrant Area Food Bank is the largest nonprofit non-health care entity in Tarrant County. We serve 13 counties as a distribution center. We have over 500 partner agencies that act as local food pantries. [Those entities] actually provide food directly to clients inside neighborhoods where the neighbors live so that it’s conveniently accessed for them. We’re the third-largest food bank in the state of Texas and in the top 20%, in terms of size, in the country. That’s primarily driven by population, so we have 2.9 million residents in our 13-county area, and about half a million of those residents go to bed at night hungry. COVID-19 affected people’s need for food.
How did that affect the Tarrant County area?
It was hugely impactful because our partner agencies—that’s over 500 partners that we rely on to distribute food—in essence shut down overnight. There’s also a school breakfast program and an after-school program [for school-age children], and those programs closed because schools closed. Suddenly, families who were previously reliant on those government programs at school no longer had access to those meals. The food bank, which was reliant on all those partner agencies to help us get food into the community, lost a lot of partners, and so we really had to pivot. That’s when you saw those really long lines, people waiting in their cars and driving up and opening up the trunk of their car and us putting food in. We’d never provided food to clients [and] neighbors directly before—we always relied on our partner networks.
Are you still seeing the effects of COVID-19 in the community and the rate of needs?
The COVID effects have diminished significantly. We’re now faced with what’s happening with inflation, and food cost is up 13% over last year. Of course we struggled for a while now in this community with housing. We have a housing shortage, and so when you have a shortage, prices go up. We also have an issue with child care; we don’t have enough child care agencies [in our area]. Child Care Associates [a Tarrant County-based nonprofit] just received $35 million from the county to build more facilities because we don’t have enough child care services here.
What do you see for the future of the Tarrant Area Food Bank?
We’re investing in a produce packing facility across the street to provide access to more nutritious food. When food banking first started, it was whatever food you could get [was] what you were trying to put back into the community. We were at the mercy of what is donated to us, but we’re trying to be more conscientious about putting nutritious food on tables instead of just any kind of food. We know that food has a direct impact on chronic diseases. We know we have a role that we can play in reducing health care costs for our community by providing nutritious food.
How can the community help?
The best thing the community can do to support us is to volunteer and to learn about our services so that they can help communicate and advocate on behalf of neighbors who are in need of food.
