COVID-19 (Coronavirus) in Maine

An Update about Good Shepherd Food Bank’s Response to COVID-19

When our neighbors are struggling, Good Shepherd Food Bank is there—every day of the year—and we’ve been here for nearly 40 years. But, like you, we’ve never seen times quite like these.

Hunger across Maine is climbing due to the economic impacts of COVID-19. According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study, which uses the most recent data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Census Bureau, food insecurity levels in Maine could increase by as much as 40 percent in 2020, depending on the sustained growth in rates of unemployment and poverty.

The needs and challenges of this pandemic are staggering and we continue to serve the state of Maine, as we always have, thanks to the support of generous donors. With support from more than 13,000 generous Mainers, we’ve responded to the pandemic in the following ways:

• We distributed 11.6 million meals between March and June 2020 to our more than 500 partners across the state—including food pantries, shelters, meal sites, schools, and health care centers. We purchased $3.7 million worth of food during this period to meet the increased need at a time when donations from retail stores were down due to back-ups in the supply chain. All of this food was distributed at no cost to our partners.
• A large portion of the food we distributed was packed into more than 45,000 emergency food boxes. During the height of the pandemic, L.L. Bean offered to help package emergency food boxes at its facility in Freeport with healthy shelf-stable food and local Maine produce. With L.L.Bean’s help, we were able to provide boxes to food pantries across the state. This shift in distribution model helped food pantries continue their services in low-touch models that didn’t require as many volunteers.
• Recognizing that our traditional purchased food didn’t meet the needs of all Mainers, we granted $150,000 to 18 organizations doing incredible work to ensure Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities throughout the state could access culturally relevant food.
• In addition, we re-granted about $1 million of donor support directly to our partner agencies to help reduce the strain on their operations. Our partners used the funds to source more food, buy cleaning supplies and protective gear, and purchase equipment to support safer distribution.
• Our Youth and Families Initiatives programs helped 19,300 families in the last school year, compared to 7,000 the year before. With our support, schools continued to provide food to families throughout the pandemic—many even grew their programs to help meet the increased needs.
• Cooking Matters, our nutrition education program, shifted to a virtual model. These hands-on cooking and nutrition classes offer people at-risk of hunger tools to create healthy meals and stretch their food budget.