Bremerton food bank struggling to stay stocked

Empty shelves and empty crates. Bremerton Food Line's executive director, Corey Cox, says normally all of these shelves would be stocked with food and household items. But that's not the case right now. Everywhere there's a green sign and no crates, that means we don't have that product in our building right now. And they need help. Since last year, Bremerton Food Line, along with a lot of other food banks, But Bremerton Food Line in particular has seen a 55% increase in client services. But our food contributions have only been a 6% increase. She says they're seeing a shortfall in products and financial resources. Corey explains the increase in needs started last year with the government shutdown and the pause in SNAP benefits. After the government shutdown, we registered 1,300 people in that month, all federal employees. and our numbers have not decreased add to that high food and gas costs our client numbers are spiking we're serving up to 200 225 or more sometimes families every single day that were open from condiments to produce and canned goods this year we're finding that we're having to purchase a lot of that stuff when when we hadn't had to purchase it before the food pantry believes no one should be hungry in our community which is why the food bank known for helping others is now asking for a little help themselves the less that we have in our food bank the less our families have in their kitchens Sarah Mathes, Fox 13 News