'We all need to eat.' Nearly 400 families seek help at Abbeville food giveaway prompted by inflation

Jul. 28—Nearly 400 Acadiana families spent hours in line at an emergency food giveaway in Abbeville, hosted Wednesday morning by Second Harvest Food Bank with the support of the Vermilion Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Most of them drove to Abbeville High School, where the drive-thru was set up, hours before it was set to open.

Food distribution events often occur after hurricanes and became commonplace during the early days of the pandemic, when many people were out of work. This time, however, the culprit is inflation.

"I woke up at 6 this morning to get here in time and avoid any lines," said 76-year-old Shirley Istre, of Kaplan, who was about 20 cars back from the beginning of the line. "As you can see, I failed. Lots of people had the same idea, and they arrived earlier than me."

Istre's husband died in 2014, and one of her two sons is recovering from surgery. She is one of thousands struggling to put food on the table in Acadiana. "We all need to eat, you know," she said. "I just can't work anymore, and I need help. This, for me, is help."

Energetic organizers and motivated volunteers began setting up lanes and stacking boxes of food in the early morning. They handed out bags of rice and flour and boxes filled with meat, beans and dairy products. They offered a smile to kids and distributed water bottles to the elderly.

As inflation continues to soar and the demand for food relief increases, there has not been enough volunteers to handle the workload, said Natasha Curley, communication and marketing director at Second Harvest.

"High prices are making it tough for so many families, even families who have very good jobs. It's reaching everyone, not only people who are traditionally food insecure," she said. "It's not affecting the way we help people, but for sure, it's changing the way we work to reach the goal."

According to the most recent consumer price index released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices surged 9.1% in June. Food costs were up by 10.4% compared to the same month last year, while energy costs increased by 60.6%. Electricity went up by 13.7% in June compared to 2021, while gasoline costs increased by 59.9%, federal data showed.

There may be some relief in sight.

Gas prices have dropped 69 cents per gallon over the past six weeks nationwide. In Louisiana, the price average at the pump was $3.906 a gallon as of Wednesday, according to the Gas Price AAA estimates.

Still, most of the families in line in Abbeville on Wednesday chose to turn their vehicles off to save gas while waiting for food. Curley said the cost of diesel to get Second Harvest trucks to giveaway events increased by 40% compared to the past events.

"There was a moment in 2021 when we thought the situation was kind of coming back to normal, which, you know, in Louisiana is never a real normal anyway, especially during hurricane season," she said.

"Then, in April we began seeing new faces and a lot of people we have not seen for months at our warehouse, looking for food relief. We realized that something was going to change and that we needed to be prepared."

As cars continued to move in line Wednesday, volunteers questioned families about what they needed the most. Volunteers Joyce Gaspard and Molli Guilbeau, of Abbeville General Hospital, were busy distributing tomato sauce cans to families. Jared Bivens, another volunteer, helped give away bags of rice and beans.

Organizers said emergency distributions like this happen when the situation is classified as a disaster. "And this is a disaster," Curley said.

Brett Moreau was distributing peanut butter for more than an hour when he took a break for a minute. "Cars just keep coming," he said. "But for us, volunteering in giveaways events like this is the smallest price to pay. We can help those who are in real need."

Second Harvest, the largest charitable anti-hunger network in south Louisiana, receives more than 80,000 pounds of food weekly and serves 23 parishes, including Lafayette and Vermilion, organizers said.

"I have never seen anything like this in Vermilion Parish," said Homer Stelly, director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "This line tells you that the needs are growing and growing every day, and that along with it, we need more help to continue to get the job done."

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