Some Long Island food pantries struggle to keep up with over 400% spike in demand

Food pantries across Long Island are working hard to keep up with demand during the pandemic.

News 12 Staff

Jul 1, 2020, 7:50 PM

Updated 1,560 days ago

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Food pantries across Long Island have seen a more than 400% spike in demand since the pandemic hit and are working hard to keep helping those in need.
Jenny Pierre and her husband have been out of work since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Pierre works in a school district kitchen and her husband is a taxi driver. Over the past few months, Pierre says they've been relying on help from a local food pantry to feed their three boys.
"I'm thinking I don't know where I would be because we can't survive without this. It helps a lot," says Pierre. "They give you food, they give you a lot."
Pronto of Long Island says before the pandemic hit it was helping about 30 families a day with food. Now that number has quadrupled. The agency actually shut down all of its other services so it could focus solely on feeding those in need.
"The new families were those that were impacted by COVID-19," says Vivian Hart, of Pronto of Long Island. "They lost their jobs and didn't have a lot of resources available to them. Many of them were already living paycheck to paycheck. So this was very severe."
Pronto and another agency received a large food and water donation Wednesday from local law firms and Stew Leonard's to help them continue feeding families.