Did Taylor Swift usher in a new era for food bank donations?

“I was shocked and then excited about the news,” Desai said. “When they told us the news, they were so kind and let us know that Taylor wanted to express her gratitude for the work we do in our community every day.”

Since last March, Swift has donated the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of meals to help feed the growing number of Americans struggling with rising food and housing costs. She prefers to donate without celebrity fanfare, and the gifts have been well-received. But food bank operators say they have provided only temporary relief as food insecurity has risen and federal government COVID-19 aid has ended.

“We received a lot of support during COVID,” said Jessica Sund, development and communications director for Minnesota’s Channel One Regional Food Bank, which received funding from Swift. “That really helped us not have a horrible situation. But the numbers we’re seeing now are much higher because of inflation and cost of living, and all that support has gone away.”

Swift’s support has been significant, food bank operators say, especially in drawing attention to their crucial service to low- and middle-income people. But food banks, collectively, require billions of dollars in funding per year, said Kyle Waide, executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, who is president of the National Food Council of America and whose Georgia food bank is a Swift grantee.

The annual funding gap between what is needed in food assistance and what the federal government provides is about $33 billion, according to Feeding America, a network of local food banks, pantries and meal programs.

“On a macro level, food banks are certainly facing a lot of pressure right now, primarily due to the extraordinary level of demand in the community,” Waide said.

Typically, according to Feeding America, food banks rely on individual and corporate donations, contributions from local farmers and retailers, and federal aid programs to maintain their operations. 75,000 meals

The self-described “tortured poet,” whose net worth is estimated at more than $1 billion, has a history of supporting emergency relief causes. Swift’s charitable fund at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee was created to respond to flooding that hit the region in 2010. Last year, Swift donated $1 million to the community foundation’s Tennessee Emergency Response Fund.

Food banks fortunate enough to receive a share of her wealth have praised the pop star for highlighting their efforts to reduce hunger amid inflation, rising food and energy costs and increased demand for their services. At least 49 million Americans rely on food from food banks and other charities. Young people, who make up a large portion of Swift’s audience, are increasingly affected by food insecurity. More than half of people between the ages of 18 and 34 said rising food costs were one of their top financial concerns.

Swift’s public relations team declined to comment on the donations she made to the food bank. Recipients said they were asked not to disclose the amount of the donations. However, Desai said the contribution allowed the food bank to purchase enough food for 75,000 meals. Typically, the food bank can provide about three meals for every dollar donated, she said.

According to Jessica Sund, the organization’s director of development and communications, the Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota was able to purchase 30,000 meals with its donation. Food banks can purchase between two and 10 meals for every dollar donated, she said.

“The truth is that it varies wildly from food bank to food bank,” Sund said.

At Channel One, it typically costs about $8 million a year to keep shelves stocked with enough food to serve about 300,000 foot traffic in 14 counties. Keeping it real

Swift’s donations appear to represent a minuscule percentage of her tour earnings and personal wealth. Yet many of her food bank’s beneficiaries find the publicity it brings invaluable.

Desai said her donation generated the kind of media attention the Rocky Mountain Food Bank could never afford. “We saw a rapid increase in likes and comments on the social media post announcing the donation, with exponentially more engagement than we normally receive,” Desai said.

Some food banks said they had noticed a surge in small donations in response to the press coverage. It was a short-lived increase, and most continue to face high demand for their services as more Americans struggle to make ends meet.

Sund said Channel One is seeing an increase in individuals and families reaching out for the first time because they realize they can no longer purchase food on their own. The organization is currently receiving 10,000 visits to its food stand in Rochester, Minnesota, which is an increase of about 50 percent over last year.

Sund and other food bank leaders point to inflation and a lack of affordable housing as contributing to the surge in demand. The end of government pandemic relief funding has exacerbated these problems, they said. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the federal government expanded the Child Tax Credit program for low-income families. Lawmakers allowed the policy to expire at the end of 2021. Similarly, temporary benefit increases for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expired in March 2023.

Second Harvest of Silicon Valley also received a gift from Swift during the U.S. leg of her tour. The organization learned that Swift was donating to food banks and reached out to her press team about a month before her performances in Santa Clara last July, said Shobana Gubbi, director of philanthropy for Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.

“The day before the concert they just called us,” he said.

Gubbi declined to provide further details about the donation, saying only that the organization was grateful for the gift and for Swift “shining a light” on food insecurity. But the situation on the ground hasn’t improved much. The Silicon Valley region has been deeply affected by layoffs in the tech sector, which have led to fewer donations, even from those still employed, Gubbi said. People are afraid of job security and are donating less — and when those donations decline, it also means less money from corporate matches, Gubbi added.

In response, Second Harvest is tightening its budget and keeping its staff small, she said. Food rations have also been reduced; instead of providing gallons of milk, the bank is now handing out half-gallons and giving out meat, eggs and dairy products on alternating weeks, she said. Some weeks people get meat, and on other weeks they may get only dairy products and eggs, Gubbi explained. The organization currently serves 500,000 people a month, about the same number as during the peak of the pandemic.

“We are having a lot of challenges right now in terms of getting community support,” he said.

_________

Stephanie Beasley is a senior staff writer for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of philanthropy coverage, visit /hub/philanthropy.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.