Lines stretch for hours at Harvest Hope as Columbia food bank expects hard holidays
An hours-long wait at the Harvest Hope food bank in Columbia might not be unusual around this time in any given year.
But it’s been like this for eight months. And it’s only getting worse now and, likely won’t get better in the coming weeks, when Harvest Hope faces the traditionally busy holiday season and cold winter months.
“The lines were just outrageous last week. They’re outrageous this week,” said Taylor Davids, a spokesperson for the 39-year-old food bank that serves 20 counties in South Carolina.
The coronavirus pandemic has weighed heavily on food banks across the nation, with millions upon millions of Americans thrust into unemployment and financial devastation because of widespread business shutdowns and fears of spreading the sometimes-deadly COVID-19 virus. The coronavirus has killed more than 257,000 people in the U.S., including nearly 4,000 South Carolinians.
In South Carolina, the economic fallout of the pandemic has led to more than 69,000 individuals seeking help at Harvest Hope’s emergency food pantry since March, Davids said. That’s an increase of more than 15,000 additional people seeking help compared to the same time period in 2019, she said.
As Thanksgiving approaches, Harvest Hope expects to see more than 500 families a day at the Columbia food pantry; it normally would serve around 300 families a day this week.
“Holidays are our busiest time in a non-pandemic year. The pandemic has added a whole other level of need here in our community,” Davids said.
The line of cars waiting to pick up food at the Shop Road pantry stretched a mile or more at times on Monday, backing up traffic on South Beltline Boulevard. Linda Byrd drove from Summerton, more than an hour outside of Columbia, hoping to find a Thanksgiving turkey to feed her two grandsons at home.
Harvest Hope isn’t giving out any turkeys or hams, but there were plenty of other meats available, including boxes of Tyson chicken. An assembly line of volunteers loaded bags of food into the trunks of clients’ cars, keeping the process as socially distanced as possible.
It’s not unusual to find people starting to line up at 3 or 4 a.m. waiting for the pantry to open at 9 a.m., Davids said.
Harvest Hope is calling out for donations of non-perishable foods such as canned goods (beans, fruits, meats, pasta sauce, soups, and vegetables), cereal, dry beans, macaroni and cheese, pasta, peanut butter, rice; donations from its Amazon wish list; monetary donations; volunteers to host traditional or virtual food drives; and volunteers to work at the emergency food pantry.
For now, Davids said, Harvest Hope remains adequately stocked on food supplies.
But “we would be naive to say that there’s not a concern,” she said. “Right now we’re OK. But that doesn’t mean that ... two weeks from now, God forbid, everything shuts down, something crazy happens and, all of a sudden, we don’t have food on the shelves or things like that.”
With coronavirus cases spiking and reports of some grocery staples beginning to disappear from store shelves, food pantries worry they could see repeats of supply shortages they dealt with during the “panic-buying” days early in the pandemic.
“When the panic buying happened earlier this year, that was a little touch and go,” Davids said. “That was scary. ... We just take it one day at a time.”
Thus far, community support has kept Harvest Hope operating continuously throughout the strenuous year, for which the staff is enormously thankful, Davids said. “The community stepped up, just like they always do,” she said. “So far, we’ve been blessed that we’ve had food to give out.”
As for clients, Davids’ most important message is “if you need help, just come. ... It’s not our business why you’re here. We’re just here to help you.”
“If anything, this pandemic (has shown) ... that it really can happen to anyone,” she said. “It could be your coworkers. It could be your neighbors. You truly have no idea what people are going through. ... Everyone is just one situation away from this happening.”
Harvest Hope’s emergency food pantry in Columbia is located at 2220 Shop Road. It also has locations in Florence and Greenville. For a list of partner food pantries throughout the Midlands and South Carolina, visit www.harvesthope.org/get-help.
This week, the emergency pantry on Shop Road is open through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. It is closed Thanksgiving Day and Friday. (Its normal hours are Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
For more information about how to receive help from Harvest Hope or how to donate goods, money or services, visit www.harvesthope.org or call 803-254-4432.
