Publishers: Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest); Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Publication Date: Feb 1, 2010
Copyright Info: Copyright 2010 Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest). All rights reserved.
Summary/Abstract: This report presents information on the clients and agencies served by America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay. The information is drawn from a national study, Hunger in America 2010, conducted in 2009 for Feeding America (FA) (formerly America's Second Harvest), the nation's largest organization of emergency food providers. The national study is based on completed in-person interviews with more than 62,000 clients served by the FA national network, as well as on completed questionnaires from more than 37,000 FA agencies. The study summarized below focuses on emergency food providers and their clients who are supplied with food by food banks in the FA network.
Key Findings:
- The FA system served by America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay provides emergency food for an estimated 409,700 different people annually.
- 37% of the members of households served by America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay are children under 18 years old (Table 5.3.2).
- 22% of households include at least one employed adult (Table 5.7.1).
- Among households with children, 93% are food insecure and 58% are food insecure with very low food security (Table 6.1.1.1).
- 58% of clients served by America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel (Table 6.5.1).
- 37% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care (Table 6.5.1).
- 36% of households served by America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay report having at least one household member in poor health (Table 8.1.1)
- America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay included approximately 598 agencies at the administration of this survey, of which 182 have responded to the agency survey. Of the responding agencies, 158 had at least one food pantry, soup kitchen, or shelter.
- 86% of pantries, 77% of kitchens, and 67% of shelters are run by faith-based agencies affiliated with churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious organizations (Table 10.6.1).
- Among programs that existed in 2006, 83% of pantries, 70% of kitchens, and 75% of shelters of America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay reported that there had been an increase since 2006 in the number of clients who come to their emergency food program sites (Table 10.8.1).
- Food banks are by far the single most important source of food for agencies with emergency food providers, accounting for 75% of the food distributed by pantries, 58% of the food distributed by kitchens, and 44% of the food distributed by shelters (Table 13.1.1).
- As many as 98% of pantries, 88% of kitchens, and 77% of shelters in America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay use volunteers (Table 13.2.1).