Will the government shutdown impact our local food bank?

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina feeds approximately 600,000 people who experience food insecurity each day.

It is a private non-profit organization, but it is involved with federal programs as well. These federal programs are important.

For every meal that the food bank can provide, the programs match it with 12 meals. With the government still being shut down, the programs’ ability to provide could be affected if things don’t change soon.

“[We are] good right now for food resources, but if this continues we’ll probably have to make additional requests for food and funds to be able to provide food for these folks. A lot of people rely not only on food from the food bank but some kind of federal program as well,” Marketing and Project Manager Jennifer Caslin said.

Depending on how long the shutdown continues, there is no way that they would be able compensate for that on their own.