BOCA RATON, Fla. — More than 9,500 clients received a pantry bag from Boca Helping Hands in the month of March, 37% higher than in March 2022.
Inside the Boca Helping Hands' main warehouse, empty pantry shelves are clearly visible.
Boca Helping Hands has seen a dramatic increase in demand for its pantry bag services. At the height of the pandemic, they were serving a record 6,100 pantry bags. Last month in March, they served over 9,500 bags.
The chief factor driving demand is clear.
"The effect of inflation on everybody. It's making it harder to make ends meet. People respond by looking for any way to supplement their income. And one of the ways that we help them to do that is to provide a bag of groceries," said Greg Hazle, who serves as the executive director at Boca Helping Hands.
"Demand keeps going up March of 2023 was our highest on record," Hazle said. "Essentially we're asking the community to participate in this effort to help us you know, find new sources of food to donate, in food drives to provide cash to purchase food."
Other non-profits are helping too.
Cereal4All is holding its annual cereal drive during the months of March and April and has already brought in over 2,300 boxes of cereal to benefit Boca Helping Handst
The organization was started by the Justin twins when they were in third grade and volunteering at Boca Helping Hands. They noticed a lack of cereal donations. Now the twins are Freshmen and their cereal drive has expanded nationally with drives in six states.
"We are happy to partner with Boca Helping Hands and other amazing organizations and we're so happy to make an impact in our community and help families who wouldn't have cereal otherwise," said Cereal4All founder Jett Justin.
The Cereal4All cereal drives have already collected a cumulative 23,000 bowls of cereal to benefit Boca Helping Hands.
The Junior League of Boca Raton fill bags weekly to help students get nutritious food on the weekend when they aren't in school.
"What we do is we come in, we help pack up food for the children on the weekends. We also help out with family dinners and serving the family dinners. We serve the family dinners and help pack the pantry bags," said Meghan Shea, the president-elect of the Junior League of Boca Raton.
Boca Helping Hands is encouraging the community to look in their pantries for food to donate, start a food drive, or make a cash donation which will enable the organization to buy the specific foods they need at a lower price-point from its vendors.
