NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Food pantries in the Newport area are expecting increased demand now that an extra $600 a week in jobless benefits many families have been receiving during the coronavirus pandemic is set to end this week.
“I am expecting to see a spike in the number of people coming in when the unemployment benefits expire,” Heather Strout, executive director of the Dr. Martin Luther King Community Center told The Newport Daily News. “We’ve been planning for this as a real possibility.”
Gina Chen, social services coordinator for the Salvation Army of Newport County, is also expecting increased demand.
“We’ve started storing up food,” she said. “We were very busy the first month of COVID. We were inundated. Now we know what to expect.”
Their organizations, like many across the state, rely on deliveries from the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
“We could see a very high demand at the food pantries in August,” said Andrew Schiff, executive director of the Food Bank.
The food bank in a normal year distributes about 1 million pounds of food per month, but that has jumped to 1.3 million pounds per month during the pandemic, he said.
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