The Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC) Food Pantry Network assisted 28,047 unique individuals during the month of July, becoming the highest monthly total in the nearly 50-year history of the network.
This exceeds the previous all-time record set in November 2023 of 26,469 unique individuals and blows away the previous busiest July by 28%. As the trend continues, this record only caps an uneasy trend of growing food insecurity that stretches back more than two years. From June 2023-July 2024 , 1 in 4 Des Moines Residents utilized a DMARC Food Pantry and this rapid increase in growth is raising concerns about the feasibility that pantries can keep up with the level of need being seen. During that time, nearly 1 in 3 people Utilizing DMARC’s network of food pantries was doing so for the first time.
“Sadly, this record will likely continue to be broken through the end of this year again and again after decades of this level of need being unthinkable here in Iowa,” said DMARC CEO Matt Unger. “It may not be visible, but I guarantee in your day-to-day you interact with someone who is utilizing a food pantry.”
This crisis is not unique to Des Moines – in every single community across Iowa, urban, suburban, and rural alike, people are struggling to put food on the table. While food banks and food pantries across the state are facing a historic level of need, the state’s best tool for fighting hunger is out of reach for many Iowans.
Enrollment in SNAP, the program formerly known as Food Stamps, is currently at a 16-year low in Iowa. While more than 90% of people utilizing a DMARC Pantry are eligible to receive SNAP benefits only 1 in 3 individuals DMARC assisted receives this support. This is largely due to the stigma, growing administrative burden, and drastic adjustment in benefits allowed to their household.
An August 15 deadline is looming for the state of Iowa to participate in additional funding during the summer months. The new permanent nutrition program called Summer EBT was introduced in 2024. It would provide extra nutritional support and temporary relief in summer 2025 to tens of thousands of children and families while school is out right here in central Iowa. The state of Iowa still has yet to announce its plans for participation in the program for next year and advocates from across the state have pointed to this as a critical tool an addressing the ever-growing challenges around child poverty.
“West Des Moines Human Services is facing a significant challenge with food insecurity as the need for assistance continues to rise. We are seeing many of our community members struggling to meet their basic needs. In our 45-year history, the demand for assistance has never been higher, with July marking our highest month on record. This surge is pushing us to reevaluate our services, programs, and capacity. We are ordering more food, needing more volunteers, and having to reconfigure our space to accommodate the growing demand. Although we have limited resources and space, we are committed to finding innovative solutions to ensure that we can continue to support our community effectively.”
Audrey Kennis, M.Ed
Director of Human Services & Inclusion
City of West Des Moines
Get involved: wdm.iowa.gov
The struggle in our community for families to cover the cost of basic things like food, clothing, and a place to live is getting harder and harder. People are getting more desperate as they worry about how to feed their children and themselves. At our pantry, it has become a regular occurrence for us to have to lock the door and let families know that we are full at the moment. Then, we spend 30-40 minutes at a time catching up and helping those that we have already checked in to get food and other needed items. This is has been excruciatingly hard for our staff and volunteers to have to turn people away. I have been here 10 years, and we have never had to do anything like this until the summer of 2022 when everything changed. Unfortunately, now it has become the norm. We (staff and volunteers) are all here because we want to alleviate hunger and food insecurity. We care about the people in our community. And yet, we don’t have time to help everyone that needs our help. This is heartbreaking for everyone involved (staff, volunteers, those that need food).
For the last 12 months, we have helped an average of 5,319 people per month in our pantry. The numbers are staggering and are still rising. In 2019 (pre-pandemic), we only served an average of 4,073 people per month. Changes over the last several years with SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), Child Care Assistance, and the Summer EBT Program (nutrition benefits to low-income children) in Iowa has exacerbated the financial situation of many famillies that are working but don’t make enough to cover the cost of living in Iowa. Everyone in our pantry strives to make pantry guests feel welcome and to make sure they are helped. I never thought I would have to see us turn people away because the lines were too long.
Missy Reams, MBA
Volunteer & Community Outreach Manager
Families Forward Bidwell Pantry
Get Involved: familiesforward.org
This work continues to stretch our staff, volunteers, and our capacity, each week building off of the last. The lines and faces are nearly constant, and I have started speaking with the nearby grocery store manager each month to get tips/tricks on how to best do this work with the least amount of people. The emergency food system should be just that – needed in an emergency. I feel we have lost track of what that means, as our pantries are being asked to fill gaps in peoples’ food needs that we were never expected to do daily, weekly, monthly. We are essentially duplicating grocery stores, who are far better suited to do this work!
Summer means an increase in need as kids are home, but it also means those who work around the seasonality of the school schedule (food service staff, associates, substitute teachers) have a hard time making ends meet for 3 months – these are the faces we see, whether they are single adults or families of 4 or more. Last month, we served a family who was counting on their high school-aged student earning extra income to help pay bills. That kiddo got very sick, meaning more expenses in addition to the loss of their projected income – these are the faces we see. Our financial assistance fund ended this June due to funding not keeping up with need. I still get calls, emails, and text messages from folx who need help with rent, utilities, car repairs that they cannot find help with anywhere else. We were able to give out $35,000 in 2024 before the program shut down, but I spoke to 2 ladies this week who said eviction is inevitable as there is nowhere else to turn – these are the faces we see.
We have added staff, upgraded infrastructure, and worked to bring in the dollars to pay for all of this. Not long ago, we would move about 10,000 lbs of food a week in/out of our pantry. We are now topping 35,000 lbs each week. I pray that the end of 2024 is kinder to us than the end of last year.
Andrea Cook
Executive Director
Johnston Partnership
Get Involved: johnstonpartnership.org
As the Executive Director of the Urbandale Food Pantry, I’ve seen firsthand the increasing stress on our visitors, volunteers, staff, and our operations. With a record number of families served—over 2,000 in July alone—our biggest challenge remains balancing the need for more food with limited storage space, all while planning for a new facility. We’re constantly evaluating how to sustain our services, which often means tough conversations about changing how we serve or reducing the items we provide to manage rising expenses.
Patty Sneddon-Kisting
Executive Director
Urbandale Food Pantry
Get involved: https://www.urbandalefoodpantry.org/
