Column: Food pantries need community support

The Tribune

A statement issued last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported 13.2 percent of Hoosier households were food insecure from 2009 to 2011. That’s government-speak for 331,980 Indiana households that are at risk of experiencing hunger — of not knowing where they might find their next meal.

Indiana saw an increase of 2 percent in household food hunger rates from the previous three-year period, 2006 to 2008, the USDA said.

“Food insecurity” means one or more people in the household were hungry over the course of the year because of the inability to afford enough food.

That may sound like a big-city problem, a problem faced in urban areas of the state such as Evansville, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. But anyone who reads the news pages of The Tribune on a regular basis knows that’s not the case.

They know that area pantries such as those operated by Anchor House, Community Provisions of Jackson County and Human Services Inc. are nearly always in need of food for their shelves and cash donations to help buy canned goods, other nonperishable goods and meat for their freezers.

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