This report presents information on the clients and agencies served by Second Harvest Heartland. 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:
Key Findings:
- The FA system served by Second Harvest Heartland provides emergency food for an estimated 468,400 different people annually.
- 40% of the members of households served by Second Harvest Heartland are children under 18 years old (Table 5.3.2).
- 36% of households include at least one employed adult (Table 5.7.1).
- Among households with children, 81% are food insecure and 41% are food insecure with very low food security (Table 6.1.1.1).
- 42% of clients served by Second Harvest Heartland report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel (Table 6.5.1).
- 27% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care (Table 6.5.1).
- 20% of households served by Second Harvest Heartland report having at least one household member in poor health (Table 8.1.1)
- Second Harvest Heartland included approximately 464 agencies at the administration of this survey, of which 369 have responded to the agency survey. Of the responding agencies, 260 had at least one food pantry, soup kitchen, or shelter.
- 41% of pantries, 60% of kitchens, and 34% 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, 92% of pantries, 81% of kitchens, and 37% of shelters of Second Harvest Heartland 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 64% of the food distributed by pantries, 44% of the food distributed by kitchens, and 46% of the food distributed by shelters (Table 13.1.1).
- Many programs rely entirely on volunteers; 43% of pantry programs and 31% of kitchens have no paid staff at all (Table 13.2.1).
WHAT TO READ NEXT
Published By
Copyright
- Copyright 2010 Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest). All rights reserved.
Document Type
Language
Geography
- North America / United States (Midwestern) / Minnesota
- North America / United States (Midwestern) / Wisconsin (Western)
Linked Data show/hide