Morning Edition; Hunger in the Holidays

It's morning edition on KRPS. This holiday season will look a lot different than most for a lot of people throughout the United States. Minions are struggling to get by, and that includes getting enough to eat. Last week I spoke with the executive director of Crossline's Ministries in Joplin, Roddy Rambo, to get an idea of how the organization is getting by during this holiday season and managing with the pandemic. And so the first question I'll lead off with is, how has the pandemic changed donating food or other goods and services to Crosslines specifically with food? Have you seen an increase, a decrease, are you getting about the same with food and how you received donations? How has that changed? Yeah. So we have definitely been right in line with the trend of food pantries across the country and that we have seen larger numbers than ever. We have been around since 1984, and just a couple of weeks ago we had our single day high.

Most clients we've ever had come through. And what's unique about this is always a busy time of year with the holidays and getting cold. But what's unique right now is that we are seeing more first time clients than ever. We're seeing that very high volume as high as 40% of clients currently who are coming in our folks that have never been here before and have never asked for assistance from anybody before. 40%. That is quite a number. Any number that we're approaching, nearly 50%. So at 40%, that is quite an increase for the food bank or the food pantry to take on. When you talk about numbers, a 40% increase. So what was the number typically in November last year and what was that increase in November this year? Yeah, I mean, so to your last on Wednesdays, we distribute commodities. And so it's not uncommon to have over 100 people come through on a Wednesday. But yeah, two Wednesdays ago, we had over 220 people come.

So that on that day was well over a 50% increase, which was probably a little bit higher up of that was obviously higher than most days. But yeah, I mean, so that's yeah, the number of people coming through the building on any day, you know, it's probably 40 to 50% higher than usual this time of year. And like I said, again, that is really unique thing in that is just the number of those people who are totally new to our program have never needed this kind of help before. So when you say they're totally new, is it more families, is it single people, is it a different demographic of individuals or families that are showing up? Yeah, I mean, we, we're seeing definitely across the spectrum, you know, families, individuals were seeing a lot of seniors, folks who've been able to get by maybe on there, social security or what not, but now do that, you know, but maybe they're having to help family member, maybe some of these had to move in with them and all of a sudden, you know, they're

needing assistance in the way they never have. We have a lot of folks that are just being impacted with their occupation, they've, they've always been able to get by and they haven't really needed that assistance. But now maybe they missed the last 14 days of work because of a COVID exposure or, you know, we had a, I had a gentleman this morning who works at a local manufacturing plant, then, you know, his, because his child was exposed to somebody with COVID at school, he now can't go to work for two weeks and, you know, then, you know, and a lot of those situations folks are able to, to maybe get paid that two-thirds during their time in quarantine, but, you know, when you're living, you know, paycheck to paycheck, only getting paid two-thirds can put a huge strain on your family. Absolutely. And cross line, cross line's food pantry in Joplin, you kind of fill the gap there, you know, you're not handing out everything, you know, this is to fill the gap, get the family into the next two weeks when a family member can go back to work.

We talked a little bit now about the output of food and supplies going out to people. What about the input? Have you experienced a decrease in the number of donations? Have you experienced an increase? What's that been like? You know, if we have, actually, we've been very fortunate. We have seen our community respond strongly. Our, you know, cross lines was started because the community, specifically local churches in our community, came together and felt convicted that they could meet the need in our city better together than they could apart. And so cross lines all these years later, we are still, we are funded primarily through local community donors, through neighbors helping neighbors. And we've, you know, whether it was the tornado in 2011 or COVID in 2020. At the times that are most difficult for our community, we've always seen the greatest response.

So folks have been incredibly generous as of late and it's allowed us to, you know, meet the increasing need. We haven't, you know, we haven't ran out of food at any point. Even on the days when there's 200 plus people here, we've continued to be able to meet the need because of just gracious donors. Rodney Rambo. He's the executive director of cross lines in Joplin. I want to thank you for speaking with me this morning. Man, thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure. You can learn more about cross lines, including how to donate online or by writing them a check and mail it to them. You can find their mailing address and donation information at their website crosslinesjoplin.org.