MU partners with Central Missouri Food Bank to profile hunger needs of mid-Missouri

More than 550,000 Missourians worry about not having enough food for themselves and their children, and more than 100,000 experience hunger. Now, a unique partnership between the University of Missouri-Columbia and the Central Missouri Food Bank will significantly assist the Food Bank in its efforts to provide emergency food services to these citizens.

Sandy Rikoon

Joan Hermsen

Nikki Raedeke

Matt Foulkes

The Missouri Food Pantry Project is the most ambitious effort ever mounted to learn about food pantry clients in the state, said Sandy Rikoon, an MU rural sociologist who serves as the project director. The project includes interviews with more than 1,200 clients in the 31 central and northeast Missouri counties served by the Food Bank. The initial results reveal both the depth of hunger in local communities and the challenge of expanding emergency food services to assist citizens coping with real economic and health hardships.

"Contrary to any idea that hunger is only an urban or international phenomenon, our work confirms that hunger affects families in every Missouri community—hunger is just around the corner or down the road from all of us," Rikoon said. "For folks who worry about not having enough food for their families, the local food pantry can make all the difference in the world."

The survey results show hunger afflicts all types of households. The majority of client families have children, and half of all pantry households include working adults.

"Many working poor are obviously continuing to struggle, and having to make the most impossible decisions about the use of scarce resources," said Joan Hermsen, associate professor of Sociology, adding that the reality of hunger is not age specific. "One in five pantry clients are more than 60 years old, and trying to stretch limited dollars to cover a variety of basic needs."

For many pantry clients, the difficulty of obtaining food is combined with struggles to cope with pressing medical concerns. Nikki Raedeke, director of the MU Dietetics Program, which is involved in providing education programs to pantry clients, said that one in five clients has diabetes, and about twice this number report high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

The Central Missouri Food Bank's work distributes nearly 20 million pounds of food annually to a network of pantries, shelters, and other facilities.

Matt Foulkes, assistant professor of Geography, said that the research underscores the value of the Food Bank. Foulkes said that nearly 6 of every 10 food pantry households must choose between paying for utilities and buying the food they need. With higher energy prices and the coming of winter, Foulkes said the situation for many will become more desperate.

"There is no way that this situation will fix itself or end soon," said Rikoon. "These households already spend less than twenty dollars per person for food each week, and the amount is even lower when there are children in the home."

The researchers are now completing their report to the Central Missouri Food Bank. Their results will be used to help target resources to the regions and groups hit hardest by hunger.

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Links:

Sandy Rikoon, Rural Sociology
Joan Hermsen, Sociology
Nikki Raedeke, Nutritional Sciences-Dietetics
Matt Foulkes, Geography

Central Missouri Food Bank

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