PLATTSBURGH — In 2023, the Plattsburgh Interfaith Food Shelf served 5,057 households, a total number of 14,343 individuals, who consumed 309,000 lbs. of food.
“Relative to 2022, that’s a 7% increase in the number of households and an 11% increase in the number of people,” Dorothy Latta, coordinator, said.
“We are serving more households with more people sometimes. Both the number of households and the number of people are up relative to 2022.”
Last year, the organization’s expenses were approximately $288,000, and income was $184,000.
“We are very fortunate in that during the pandemic, we had a number of generous donations and our number of clients slowed down and that is because number one, people were told to stay home and not come out of their house,” she said.
“Then, we also had generous donations, so we were able to build up a reserve of money.”
In 2022, the organization’s expense deficit was $170,000. In 2023, the deficit decreased to $104,000.
“So we’ve kind of dipped into those savings a lot,” Latta said.
“We are depleting that pretty quickly. We’ve taken a look at that. There are a couple of different reasons. Number one, the number of clients have increased. The cost of food has been tremendous. Our cost of food between 2019 and 2021, the food we ordered from the Regional Food Bank, which is where we get most of our food, was about 47 cents a pound. In the last two years, the average amount of food was about 87 cents a pound, which is more than doubled the cost of food.”
Kinks in the supply chain also contributed to price hikes.
“By being members of the Regional Food Bank, we are eligible to receive food from the USDA,” she said.
“That amount was very much decreased. The bottom line is we were paying over double the cost of food. So that’s really been the big challenge.”
Internal steps were implemented to address this issue, so the Food Shelf can keep its doors open. It’s too early to tell what type of impact the new changes will have on operations.
“We won’t know for awhile what the impact will be, but we are certainly looking to manage that,” she said.
As part of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, the Food Shelf is required to follow nutrition guidelines.
“New York State has a program, and it’s referred to as HPNAP, which is the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program,” Latta said.
“So they give guidance meaning that when we provide food, we need to provide at least three days of food with three meals. That’s the minimum requirement.”
The Plattsburgh Interfaith Food Shelf has always exceeded this minimum requirement.
“An appropriate offering of different food groups, fruits and vegetables, proteins and grain meaning we cannot just hand somebody 20 cans of Spaghettios and say that’s it,” she said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic when more donations were received, the Food Shelf gave out six days worth of food. In one situation, nine days of food was distributed.
“Because we felt that if people were giving money to us money to provide food for the community that’s what we should be doing with our money,” she said.
“It wasn’t to put in our bank account. Now that we’ve chipped away at the bank account, we are taking a look. We are still exceeding that minimum requirement, and we also have made some decisions about some specific food items that we offer.”
The Food Shelf is a client-choice pantry, where clients can pick what they want and are not handed a prepared box of goods.
“We have six choices of fruit, and one of them was a lot more expensive than the other,” she said.
“So we decided we won’t buy that more expensive one. We would still maintain having a variety of items for people to select from. We were still more than meeting the minimum of three days requirement. We offer at least four days of food. We’re just looking at our own operation to see what we can see for cutting costs.”
Food purchases account for 92% of the all-volunteer organization’s budget.
“We are all volunteer, so we can’t layoff people,” Latta said.
“We don’t have payroll. We don’t have anywhere else to cut other than the cost of food. Donations would be very much appreciated. In the last year or two, we set up a website (plattsburghfoodshelf.org) where people can donate electronically. We had not had that for many years. It does allow people to donate either with PayPal or a credit or debit card. We have seen an increase. People appreciate that ability.”
Via snail mail, checks can be mailed directly to: Plattsburgh Interfaith Food Shelf, PO Box 1317, Plattsburgh, New York, 12901.
“Some people like to donate directly to the Regional Food Bank in Latham because that way they absolutely know it’s going to buy food,” Latta said.
“If they designate the Plattsburgh Food Shelf when they make a donation there, they put it on our account and we receive all of that money. We do have people who make cash donations sometimes from fundraisers, and they can drop it off at the Food Shelf during our hours. We are open from 9 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday, and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday afternoon. The community is why we are here. The community provides over 70% of our support.”
The Food Shelf is located within the Plattsburgh United Methodist Church, 127 Beekman St., Plattsburgh.
It operates with more than 130 volunteers. Since 1984, residents have been volunteering to help other residents in need.
“The beauty is there are some people who volunteer one day a month,” Latta said.
“There are some people who are substitutes. They do a variety of things. The reason I think our Food Shelf works so well is because we have a number of people who contribute. Right now, it looks like last year there were around 5,800 hours of volunteer service.
“That’s the reason the only place we can cut is in food because we don’t pay anybody. So yes, donations would be very much appreciated.”