Between August of 2023 and August of 2024, the organization gave away 1.9 million pounds of food.
“Individuals, churches, all donate. A lot of places, businesses, do food drives for us all year long,” Matson said. “The Boy Scouts, postal workers, and then the fair in August and then right now, all of the Christmas and holiday food drives ... seems like everybody does them at the end of the year, which is OK, because that’s when most people need it.”
The number of family visits to FISH has stabilized compared to last year, but this is primarily attributed to a change in the pantry’s policy that families can come for groceries once a month, where previously it was once every three weeks.
“If we had kept on with every three weeks, we’d have been well over 16,000 (visits) this year, but the way it is, we’ll hit probably 14 or 15,000,” Matson said.
Not counting duplicate visits, FISH has served 3,155 families this year, more than a thousand of whom have never gone to a food pantry before. FISH averages 100 new families per month, Matson said.
Many of those that come to Greene County FISH are elderly, disabled, or otherwise in poor health. FISH also serves a large veteran population, and increasingly sees folks who are “working poor.”
But those aren’t the only demographics. FISH’s data shows in 2024 so far, 44 people who have visited have advanced degrees, such as a master’s or a doctorate, and 215 have an associate’s or a bachelor’s degree, or a trade certification.
“There’s just an assumption that everybody that comes to the pantry is poor and dumb,” Matson said. “Even a lot of people that come to the pantry, they feel like that. But when I look at statistics like that, that tells me these are just people that are down on their luck.”
“Every one of us is just one step away from a major illness. A million-dollar hospital bill can wipe anybody out and we can go from on top to on bottom in a heartbeat,” Matson said. “And that’s what I always tell people, our volunteers and everybody, the first thing I tell them is to treat everybody with respect, because you don’t know when it’s the worst day of their lives.”
FISH’s nearly 200 regular volunteers have more than 23,000 service hours this year. This holiday, crews from Xenia-based HB Electric and Construction came to FISH the week before and packed 720 boxes of food in about four hours.
Greene County FISH also started a $1.2 million fundraising campaign last year, $800,000 of which would be invested as operating funds down the road, and $400,000 of which would be used to build new facilities.
The organization has already tackled several facilities projects, including building a new 3,200-square-foot storage facility, with a 720-square-foot freezer inside. The freezer can store an estimated 70 skids of food.
“(The freezer) is going to make a huge difference, we hope, in being able to get more donated food, which will keep our costs down, not having to buy food as much,” Matson said.
The next project to tackle is a new cooler space, matching the freezer at 720 square feet, estimated to cost about $60,000.
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