ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. — Hunger in Michiana is on the rise, reaching levels higher than during the 2020 pandemic. But how much of an increase are local food pantries seeing, and what's causing this rise in food insecurity?
ABC57 Investigative Reporter Annie Kate dives into these questions with the ABC57 News Investigates Special Report, "Feeding Michiana: Hungry for the Holidays."
Just ahead of Christmas at the Food Bank of Northern Indiana's on-site pantry in South Bend, a line wraps around the parking lot and onto the street for drive-up food pickups. One woman waiting in that line, Margaret Followell, said it's normal.
"Thank god for the pantries, because I don't know how a lot of us would make it out here," Followell said.
"Continually after COVID, there has just been this steady incline in the number of people having to visit pantries to supplement their food needs," said Jim Conklin of Cultivate Food Rescue.
The long lines are only getting longer, according to Marijo Martinec, executive director & CEO of the Food Bank of Northern Indiana.
"A couple of days a week, our pantry opens at nine. We'll have people come as early as 5:30 or 6 a.m. to wait in line," Martinec said.
It's all a result of rising food insecurity in St. Joseph County and all of Michiana.
"Through November of this year, compared to November of '24, our [South Bend] pantry has seen 8,800 new households," Martinec said.
It's something Jim Conklin, co-founder and executive director of Cultivate Food Rescue, thinks we aren't talking about enough.
"What do you think community members may not understand about food insecurity?" Annie Kate asked, to which Conkling replied, "People don't wear signs that they're hungry, right? You could stand right next to somebody who's food insecure, you would never know."
"A lot of people, we're going to a lot of pantries, just trying to make ends meet, due to the fact that it is hard out here," Followell said. "Even by working and doing what you're doing in life, it's still not enough. It's not anymore."
Followell, who lives in South Bend, said she's feeding 10 mouths, including herself.
"I have all three of my kids, five of my grandkids, myself, and my father-in-law," Followell said. "To look in my kids, grandkids faces, 'Grandma, I'm hungry.'"
After a year of job losses and taking in her kids and grandkids, she's doing her best to make ends meet.
"I don't even have a Christmas tree. It's day-by-day. Doordashing, doing everything I can," she said.
She says it's hard to find good work.
"There aren't many people who want to hire a 50-year-old lady," she said. "So, you've got to take what you can get at this point. And that's where I'm at. It's like I'm grasping for stuff that's not there."
"I think, you know, we need to talk about what is a fair wage for a person," Martinec said.
"You can't even make it on $20 an hour. You can't make it on that. You're going to come up short somewhere. So what options do we have? Waiting in this line," said Christopher Harringer, another man waiting in the food pantry line.
However, he isn't picking up for himself, he says.
"Just trying to help somebody I know that doesn't have a vehicle and can't get down here," he said.
It's something he said he's been doing for seven years and said the lines this year are noticeably longer.
"Jobs that can't pay a living wage so you can make it, and just rising costs at the grocery stores," Harringer said.
"In our six counties-- so, we serve Elkhart, Kosciusko, Laporte, Marshall, Starke, and St. Joseph counties-- 111,110 Households are food insecure in our community. So that's 15 percent of the population," Martinec said. "In St. Joseph County, 42,490 households are food insecure, 15.6 percent. And 13,080 children, so almost 21 percent of children live in food-insecure households."
Martinec says the numbers come from Feeding America's annual "Map the Meal Gap" study. The metrics run behind, so these are 2023 numbers, and Martinec says the 2025 numbers will show a big increase in need.
In 2024, Martinec says the Food Bank distributed 11.08 million pounds of food.
"The rising cost of food, I would say, likely contributes to that as well, with the rising cost of everything," Martinec said.
The drive-through format for the food pantry began during the social distancing modifications enacted during the pandemic, which was one of the biggest food insecurity crises in the Food Bank's history.
"It was very impactful, I think, followed by the shutdown, the 43 days that the federal government shut down," Martinec said. "I'd put this government shutdown as a milestone for our organization."
"I think many times we look at the economy from the top down, and it looks great from the top down. If we looked at it from the Bottom up, it's a totally different view," Jim Conklin said.
Conklin explained how lines got longer at food pantries as the COVID-era benefits that many came to rely on dried up.
"And then you had the inflation for over the last five years," Conklin said. "That's really put a dent in people's pocketbooks. So, if you didn't have a lot of wiggle room in your budget, you lost all of it. And so, we've seen record-high credit card, record-high car loans. People are really living off of debt. They may still be working right, but the amount of money you're paying for basic needs, especially housing, because housing is really ramped up rent too, and it's just every basic need you have, the cost has been higher."
Conklin is working to better understand the data and trends in hunger across Michiana, and his organization's research finds most of those in need of food assistance are what they'd consider "working poor."
"So, that space in between qualifying for benefits and, you know, not being able to make ends meet is what I would call the working poor," he said.
According to Cultivate's annual survey: "Pantries that are seeing increases are averaging about a 20% jump in demand month-over-month, while other food-related programs (healthcare, housing, homeless outreach, veterans, etc.) that are seeing increases are closer to 25–30% increases."
Consider this summer's government shutdown, not to mention the major spike in need this summer when Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were in jeopardy.
"I think for a while there, most people thought, oh, this isn't going to happen, right? Snap has never been terminated or suspended in our country, ever," Conklin said. "And as we kind of got closer to that point, it became very real that it could happen. And it happened for a short, short bit. We saw that big 20% spike across the board."
All these factors, combining to create, for more and more households, a hunger crisis.
"If you focus on how much you could buy with the dollars that you have, that's purchasing power," Conklin said. "And I think really, across the board, everybody's lost purchasing power. When you don't have much of it, it's a big problem."
"A lot of people are standing on a financial cliff, and their toes are over the edge, and one thing could really push you off that edge, and it's really hard to get back," Conklin continued.
But through struggle comes strength.
"I told my grandkids, I said, 'It's going to be a little tough this year, guys,'" Followell said. "My oldest one, he's 13, he said, 'Grandma, I don't care.' He said, 'As long as we have each other, I don't care.'"
And through awareness comes action.
"I guess I would tell anybody watching, just go to a food pantry and see the number of people in line," Martinec said. "It's actually overwhelming."
Martinec said they will get their December numbers in mid-January, so at that time, they'll have a better picture of their year overall.
Conklin told ABC57 Cultivate Food Rescue is in the process of developing what he calls "Hunger Intelligence." Using Amazon Web Services technology, Cultivate is working to track the data and trends of those experiencing food insecurity, to better understand where the gaps are and how agencies like Cultivate can step up to fill them.
There will be changes coming to SNAP in just days, beginning Jan. 1. These include work requirements, and here in Indiana, SNAP recipients can no longer use their benefits to buy things like candy, pop, and bakery items. Those changes may affect the lines at food pantries in the new year.