Credit: (Clockwise from top left: AP Photo/Seth Wenig; CFBNJ; Jon Hurdle; Jon Hurdle)
The year at New Jersey food banks, clockwise from top left: Waiting on line at Oasis, Paterson; volunteers sort food at the Community FoodBank of New Jersey; Dylan Kuzinksi and his mother Jessica Kuzinksi expressed gratitude for the distribution by the Food Bank of South Jersey; loading produce into a waiting car at the Food Bank of South Jersey
For New Jersey’s food banks, it’s been a rough year, and it may be getting worse before it gets better.
The state’s three major food banks already reported record annual increases of around 50% in the amount of food they gave out to the hundreds of food pantries, churches and other charitable organizations that distribute food to the thousands of people who can’t afford to buy groceries because they have lost their jobs in the COVID-19 pandemic.