Austin News

Facing the increased need and restrictions that have accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, the Central Texas Food Bank has had to adapt in order to ensure those in need in the community are still being served.

Mark Jackson, chief development officer for the Central Texas Food Bank, told the Austin News that one of the first things it had to do was accommodate social distancing requirements. Under the existing model, clients were able to come up in person and select food from a variety, including fresh produce and frozen or shelf-stable items, he said.

“As the recommendations from the CDC started unfolding early-on in the pandemic, we realized that we realized that we needed to quickly adapt and get to a model where our staff and volunteers would not have to put themselves at risk in order to get food out,” he said.

The Food Bank turned to its experience with past mass distributions of food to come up with boxed selections that could be easily distributed to clients while minimizing the chance of coronavirus exposure, he said. Early on during the pandemic, that included building boxes around the idea that clients might have to shelter in place and would need supplies of shelf-stable food.

At the same time they were working to continue care for existing clients, the Food Bank was hit with a new surge in need.

“Immediately we saw a huge spike in the number of people that were seeking service from us,” Jackson said. “So, we were doing about eight of these large-scale, mass distributions on top of our normal work that we would be doing in any given year.”

At the same time, the Food Bank was converting existing distributions to the new drive-thru model, he said. Those continued to serve primarily the existing clients in different communities, while the larger distributions helped to handle the increased need.

“And they’ve been incredibly effective,” Jackson said of the larger distributions. “It’s just a much more expensive model. It requires us to purchase much more food than we would normally purchase in a given year.”

Normally the Food Bank would rely more on donated food, particularly that from retailers, but the pandemic has interfered with that source as well, he said.

And things are not likely to slow anytime soon for the Food Bank. Jackson said they are anticipating the spike in need to last for at least the next three years.

“Part of what we’re doing is doing the work and building the model and continuing to meet the need,” Jackson said. “And then the other part is educating the community that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”