Winterport, Men Filis Allen spends his days in search of things. She is looking for potatoes in Sam's Club, cheap beets and ginger in Walmart and in a local grocery store. She studies a weekly inventory from Good Shepherd, the only man Food bankFor good transactions in oil and cheese.
Every morning on Monday, she makes purchases in three different stores, keeps lists of prices in her head and recalls that specific customers want. During a recent trip to the Sam club, she was looking for available eggs.
Umlachy 78-year-old pantry director found them in a huge cooler. Stretching, she pulled out two huge boxes from the upper shelf – seven dozen eggs, $ 21 per box. “2.82 dollars per dozen,” she said. “This is a good price for eggs.”
Eggs were designed for a neighbor’s wardrobe, a food pantry in the Windowsport, Maine, who Allen helped to run over the past 17 years. Every Wednesday, she and a group of volunteers with difficult binding provide from 25 to 30 families with a piece of food.
Maine has long one of the most food states In New England. The directors of food classes say that the task is to make sure that people feed is becoming more and more difficult to reduce food reserves, increasing demand and suppressing dependence on volunteers, many of which are under 80 pensioners under the age of 80.
Near each of the seven people in the rural area of the Waldo district, where the neighbor is located, in 2023 was not food, which was similar to the average value of the state and the country, according to the analysis of the Association of the Academic Bureau and feeding America.
The US Department of Agriculture will Stop collecting and releasing statistics about the absence of food security After October, saying on September 20 that the numbers became “excessively politicized.”
In March, the Trump administration reduce more than $ 1 billion From the two programs of the US Department of Agriculture – emergency food assistance programs that provide free food banks throughout the country, and the local co -assistance program for the purchase of food, which provides funds for state, territorial and tribal governments for the purchase of food from local farmers for the distribution of hunger for hunger for hunger.
“I can watch the presence of federal food every month,” Allen said.
Charitable food networks are also preparing to reduce $ 186 billion Additional nutrition assistance program (SNAP)Federal power program with low income, better known as food coupons. In turn, feeding America predicts that food pantries will see more demand.
A complication of questions is an infrastructure through which the United States distributes most of the food to those who need help. There are almost 600 hunger agencies in the state of Maine, which receive free and inexpensive food from the Good Shephard Food Bank, rely on volunteers. This includes 250 food classes, as well as soup kitchens, senior centers, shelters, schools and youth programs.
According to Good Shepherd, more than 75% of these organizations are fully relying on volunteers, without paid personnel.
Anna Korsen, who is the co -chair of the final hunger in the Maine Consulting Committee, said that only the pantries are not a response to the lack of food security.
“If our goal is to put an end to the hunger in the state of Maine, which is a high goal, then we are not going to do it through a charity network with food that volunteers control, right?” She said. “It should be for crisis situations … But what happened is that now it is just part of the food system. It should not be. ”
The neighboring cabinet at recent morning on Wednesday for ghouls with activity, banks that have developed in piles six feet high, and children's collages glued to the cooler.
Keith Richie welcomed customers – and gently made sure that no one would take more than their fair share of limited products. At 89, he is the oldest employee of the pantry, although Betty Williams, 88 years old, tears him about who is older.
For more than 17 years of service, Richie said: “I missed only twice.” He drives 20 miles (32 kilometers) in each direction to release products and fill the bags with “surprises” – donated objects, such as cookies for gamies -scouts.
“You see a lot of people you know,” he said. “I don't know anyone’s name, but I don’t need a name. I just look at their faces. ”
Younger volunteers can be more difficult to find than available eggs. About 35% of the volunteers of Mainers-thirds in terms of the rate in the country, according to the report of 2024 on the state of civil health of the state of Maine. But only 20% of the volunteer millennials in the state of Maine, at half the level of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, the same report said.
This is not a lack of desire to serve, but obstacles on the way, said Kikada Moore Vissing, the author of the report.
“I would classify this as a stunned and overloaded society,” said Moore Vissing. “The growing costs for everything and, in particular, the cost of housing means that people should work more.”
Young volunteers are increasingly looking for that Minnesota calls the alliance of non-profit advance “based on events”-uninvited efforts without commitment to future shifts. About 20% of all volunteers contribute to a combination of online and personal work, according to Examination of Americorps 2023Field
A decrease in the number of volunteers and the transition to one -time obligations can cause serious problems.
In early September, at the beginning of September at the beginning of September at the beginning of September, in early September, in early September, it was necessary to postpone the distribution of thousands of pounds, because the second largest bank in the country had enough people to sort and pack it, said Julie Green volunteers, the director of the volunteers.
As a result, food pantries in Minnesot and Western Wisconsin received food later than expected.
Green is struggling to overcome the inconsistency between the needs in personal volunteer work, such as packagers of products, and a growing desire for random maintenance.
“How can we provide more these capabilities for volunteers, so people interact with us,” she said, “and continue to do what we need to do the work?”
In the closet of neighbors, Allen said that the reduction in financing is not the most difficult part of her work. According to her, this holds volunteers, especially: “As they become older, and they have health problems, or their families have health problems.”
The distribution of food requires muscles – reliable, strong volunteers who can pass long distances in the snow and ice to pick up or deliver heavy food boxes.
A year ago, Allen said to his colleagues: “Find me a piece with a truck.” They lost their 78-year-old volunteer when his wife fell ill. Without a replacement, they would not have the opportunity to collect hundreds of pounds of food every week.
Through the mouth in the mouth of Allen found one: 67-year-old Brian McLaren. But just a few months after he started, he needed operation on his knee. The staff again had to look for a replacement.
Since March, the pantries in the state of Maine have seen their food from a good shepherd, carved half or more. Until now, the neighbor's cabinet has enough to get around, partly because the locals donated 5,000 pounds (2300 kilograms) of food during the May trip. But changed.
At the end of August, Allen received an email from Good Shepherd. According to the Food Bank, since demand is growing, in deposits working on deliveries, it is now allowed to reject visitors who do not live nearby, changing the long-standing philosophy of the food of Hud Pastuha for everyone.
Allen did not have this.
“We will continue to serve everything,” she wrote in an electronic letter in Maine Monitor.
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Journalist Ap Data Journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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This story was first published on September 28, 2025. It was fixed on September 29, 2025 to show that the second Heartland Heartland had to postpone food processing from the lack of volunteers. The amount of food that was distributed by the organization did not decrease.
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This reporting is part of a series called “sow stability”, cooperation Between the Institute of Non -Profit News' Rural news network And the Associated Press was focused on how rural communities throughout the United States are guided by problems with the lack of food security. Nine non -profit news were involved in the series: LighthouseIN Capital bIN Latino NC LinkIN Investigate the Middle WestIN Jefferson County LighthouseIN HairIN Louisville public mediaIN Main Monitor And MinnpostThe Rural News network is financed by Google News Initiative and Knight Foundation, among other things.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Department of Scientific Education of Howard Hughes and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP bears sole responsibility for all content.
