![]() “I want to take shame out of being hungry,” Babineaux-Fontenot says. For instance, the Maryland Food Bank received a $80,000 grant aimed at seeing what food banks can do in the way of job training to increase personal incomes and thus reduce hunger among those who have been relying on them. In fiscal 2021, she greenlit cash grants to individual food banks taking a broad view of how to tackle hunger. In her four years as CEO of Feeding America, Babineaux-Fontenot has nearly doubled annual spending on public awareness programs to $10 million and has emphasized racial disparities in food insecurity, which in turn has implications for disparities in health. It's not just Covid, inflation and politicians that been raising awareness of food insecurity in the U.S. Babineaux-Fontenot applauds the goal, but cautions “some significant things would have to happen’’ for it to be reached. In September the Biden administration held the first White House conference on food security in more than a half century and issued a plan to end hunger in the U.S. “It’s not good for the country that there are so many people who have to rely on us,” says Babineaux-Fontenot. adults reported they were being forced to skip meals and another 12% said they had to make do with lower quality or fewer varieties of food. ![]() But that flow of federal cash has stopped even as the price of food at home has surged more than 12% in the past year, driving food insecurity back up where it was at the start of the pandemic. After the pandemic spiked in early 2020, the number of Americans who reported having trouble paying for food fell in 2021 as a wave of government assistance, including stimulus checks and temporary refundable child credits, fattened families’ bank accounts. While Covid raised food banks’ profile and support, inflation is now keeping them busy. Delivery truck driver Eddie Degois at All Faith Food Bank in Arcadia, Fla.
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