About once a week, Jason Koefter drives down a road he never thought he would have to travel.
“It feels a little bit embarrassing,” he said.
He attends West Pittsburg Community Church of God in Christ, a place that has become both a lifeline and a reminder of how much his life has changed.
“It’s definitely hard. I grew up where I was taught to work for everything you have,” he said.
A father of four, he lost his job as a salesman after a debilitating heart attack. Now it is almost impossible to make ends meet.
“I went to the grocery store last night and had to return half of my groceries because I didn’t have enough money,” he said.
Across the country, food banks and pantries are struggling to meet demand as more people like Koefter face the same hard truth: It’s harder than ever to cover the basics.
Carissa Crader is the chef at Loaves & Fishes, a soup kitchen in Contra Costa, where one in four people are now food insecure. On an average day, she makes about 4,000 meals, up from about 1,200 a few years ago.
“I’ve pushed more meals out of this kitchen than I ever imagined,” she said. “And it just keeps growing.”
The Contra Costa & Solano Food Bank said it is now distributing 2.9 million pounds of food monthly, up from 1.8 million in 2019.
And it’s not just in the Bay Area. A recent survey from Credit Karma shows that as many as 27% of Americans are now skipping meals due to skyrocketing food prices.
But there is good news, says Emily Childers, a consumer advocate with Credit Karma.
“We’re seeing these major indicators improving as inflation starts to cool and the Fed cuts rates, but that hasn’t yet materialized for consumers in their daily budgets. Personally, I am optimistic that this will be the case. .”
As for Koefter, he’s feeling a little more hopeful. not just about dinner, but about life itself.
“It lets me know that there’s a future tomorrow, and we’re going to come out of this okay,” he said.
