LANSING, Mich. (WILX) – Hunger is on the rise throughout the country with 44 million Americans going without food in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The increasing cost of food, and gas, and the end of pandemic relief programs have many families turning to local food banks.

“The cost of food is going up, the cost of inflation on everything that is impacting families. Whether it’s food, rent, transportation kind of everything like that,” said Greater Lansing Food Bank Chief Development Officer Kelly Miller.

“We have distributed more than a million pounds of food, last month, out of this building so we’re going to be looking at between 11 million to 12 million pounds of food distrusted out of this building by the end of the calendar year, which is our most we’ve ever distributed.”

For Lansing resident Lauren Harper who hasn’t received help from a local food bank. She says she has felt the effects of inflation working as a server with varying pay.

“We definitely don’t go grocery shopping as much as we need to in the past couple of months, like we’ve been really struggling like my mom has been helping us with groceries,” said Harper.

“Food prices especially have remained stubbornly high over the past 12 months and those really haven’t come down and that’s where it’s hitting the family really hard,” said Miller.

The Greater Lansing food bank saw a 20% increase from August to September of 2023.

Miller says the food bank could see an uptick during the holiday season but there’s a need all year round. “In September of this year alone, we have served more than 18,000 households. We’re waiting on final numbers from October we’re expecting that number to go up.”

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