WHAT IS FOOD INSECURITY?
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food insecurity refers to the lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.
HUNGER IN MISSISSIPPI
​​Mississippi is FIRST in obesity and ranks SECOND in both hunger and poverty (according to Friends Committee on National Legislation).
One-in-ten working Mississippians lacks food. Securing a job is simply not enough to guarantee a person won’t go hungry (finds Hunger Free America). In Mississippi between 2016 and 2018, nearly 12% of working adults lived in households that couldn’t always afford enough food. Nearly half a million people in Mississippi were and continue to be food insecure, making it the second hungriest state in the nation. Statistics are latest available and known to be extremely lower than actual, due to the 2019 pandemic and resulting economic crisis.
Extra Table works to support moms who can’t make ends meet no matter how many hours they work; families who have been left in the wake of a downturned economy; men who have worked their entire lives only to have to apply for disability and await a long approval process; and seniors whose Social Security isn’t as much as they had anticipated.
Among the most consistent of pantry clients are low- and fixed-income seniors. In 2020, 17.7% of seniors (60+) have faced the threat of hunger in the past 12 months and are monthly participants in food pantries (United Health Foundation).Prior to Covid-19, more than 600 thousand Mississippians struggled with food insecurity. Today, Extra Table’s food pantry and soup kitchen partners are realizing an additional 30-5-% increase in requests for food supplies. Rethink Mississippi reports that 22% of Mississippi residents are food insecure.
For the 2019-2020 school year, Mississippi had approximately 357,000 children eligible for free and reduced-priced breakfast and lunch, or about 74% of children in participating schools. Many of these children, our future leaders, go to bed hungry each night (USDA).Extra Table is the most innovative, efficient, effective and constant answer to fighting food insecurity in Mississippi.