When nonprofit leaders describe current conditions in their communities, the term “perfect storm” comes up.
One of the places where the storm is most visible is the We Share Hope food pantry and low-cost market, as described by the organization’s executive director, Johanna Corcoran.
“It’s pretty staggering,” Corcoran said of the need this year. “We’re used to seeing about 500 people a week. That [number] has gone up to about 850.”
The East Providence-based nonprofit tackles food insecurity through free pantries and Hope Market, a low-cost grocery store in the Rumford section of the city that runs on donations of excess food from grocery stores and funnels all proceeds back into the nonprofit’s relief efforts.
And while We Share Hope previously saw many returning clients among those served, “now we’re just meeting new faces every single day,” Corcoran said.
The nonprofit typically sees an uptick in community need around the holidays, but it’s “not as significant as this year, not as striking,” Corcoran said.
Inflation has led to an increase in the number of individual clients the nonprofit serves, as well as other nonprofit groups and community organizations that reach out to We Share Hope for additional resources.
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SCHOOL DROP-OFF: Cliff Moniz, a driver/warehouse worker at the We Share Hope food pantry in East Providence, unloads donations for the Mount Pleasant High School food pantry in Providence.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
That’s partially due to increased expenses in other areas of life, such as heating costs. Additionally, holiday breaks leave kids who depend on free school meals without their usual source for breakfast and lunch, which We Share Hope is responding to with food pantries set up at local high schools before these breaks. About 50 to 85 students have used that service on weeks when it’s offered, according to Corcoran.
“We start talking numbers and people’s eyes glaze over, but there’s a story behind every single one of those numbers,” Corcoran said.
They’re often disturbing stories: A recent customer at Hope Market was a mother who said she’d come from selling blood plasma in order to buy groceries for her family, Corcoran recalls.
Meeting the current need could be a challenge, Corcoran says, but she’s confident in the organization’s donors, and staff is reaching out to the business community for more contributions.
To keep up the staffing to meet this need, the organization has also experimented with new benefits to recruit and retain staff, Corcoran says, such as a now-permanently implemented four-day workweek with a rotating schedule that allows the organization to remain open five days a week.
“We try to take care of each other as much as possible so we can bring our best selves,” Corcoran said.
