Summer is Slow Time for Food Banks

One of the most visible effects of the weak economy is in charitable giving.

Sadly, need doesn’t take the summer off.

And food pantries are finding that out this summer the hard way.

The Central U.P. Food Bank’s main branch in Ishpeming set a record for distribution for the first two months of the year.

And the same demand has continued for the last several months as well.

They don’t track exactly how many folks they’ve helped, but it’s been plenty.

Food Bank branch manager Dave Mason says each pantry day is consistently bringing in 250 to 300 families right now.

The community need for things like the Food Bank’s two pantry days each month doesn’t go up in warmer weather.

But it does get harder and harder to run the pantry when the temperatures rise because less funding is coming in.

Food donations aren’t coming in as fast anymore, either.

And we’ll have a look at how that directly affects families coming up on Wednesday on ABC 10 News Now.