Catholic Charities Boston has seen a surge in the numbers of families who need food pantry assistance, offering nearly 3 million pounds of food over the past year.
Over the past three months, Catholic Charities Boston has “seen over 2,000 new households register who have never come to our food pantries before,” said Jonathan Tetrault, the vice president of economic empowerment at Catholic Charities Boston.
Tetrault told “EWTN News Nightly” on May 29 that these families “are seeking help with food assistance because of the many pressures that are … colliding to put pressure on their family budgets.”
“So theyʼre reaching out to us for help,” he said.
The organization operates “four food pantries across the cities of Brockton, Dorchester, Lowell, and Lynn. This past year, weʼve served nearly 70,000 people through these four food pantries – almost 3 million pounds of food through these four locations,” Tetrault said.
“We offer fresh fruits and veggies, frozen lean proteins, shelf-stable dry goods,” he said.
“[W]hat weʼre hearing from [families] when theyʼre coming in to get these critical groceries is that itʼs … a number of factors” that are causing the need, he said.
Following federal cuts to programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Catholic Charities is experiencing an “elevated need in our communities, and weʼre seeing fewer dollars to meet that need with,” he said.
“For some folks, the SNAP work requirements are going into effect. Most of our other clients are being impacted by the high cost of gas” and “utility prices soaring,” he said.
“This is all coming together to strain their family budgets over the past several months,” he said.
“It is becoming harder to stand in the gap, but that is our commitment [to] those families, those individuals who are coming to us for support. And so weʼre figuring out ways to do that,” he said.
The organization is adapting to meet the urgent needs and acquire the necessary food, he said.
“Most recently, we had to double the credit limit on our fuel cards” to ensure delivery trucks and vans could continue to get fueled up, he said.
Call for community involvement
As Catholic Charities Boston’s food pantries operate with small numbers of staff members, they rely on volunteers and are calling for community support.
“We recognize that it takes each one of us to meet the needs of our neighbors in our communities. So we would love for … our community to support us with their time, their talent, their treasure,” Tetrault said.
To help, Tetrault called on the community to “find out where your local food pantry is” and “show up to volunteer.”
“You can bring donations of dry goods there as well. And then supporting us financially … is critical because oftentimes weʼre able to purchase food at a better scale, better price points, when we pull those funds together,” he said.
The “food pantries operate with two staff each,” he said. “So we rely heavily on our volunteer support” which is “critical for us to be able to serve the hundreds and hundreds of families that we see each and every day throughout the week.”
