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NEW YORK: Hundreds of cars line up before dawn on weekly distribution days for Forgotten Harvest’s partner food pantries in the Detroit metropolitan area, where visitors are up 50 percent this year.
The need has grown as the coronavirus pandemic has closed offices and other businesses. Also the answer.
Monetary donations to the food bank are on track to exceed last year’s contributions, helping to fund a larger storage space and new mobile distribution sites needed to safely distribute food during the crisis.
“The only good thing about this pandemic is that it has made people care a little more about their neighbors,” said Christopher Ivey, director of marketing for Forgotten Harvest, one of Michigan’s largest food banks.
The economic crisis triggered by the pandemic has widened the gulf between the “rich” and the “poor” in the United States in new ways. People who can work from home, often in higher-earning jobs, feel comfortable.
But more than 20 million Americans depend on unemployment benefits, and hunger and poverty are increasing.
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The widening gap has been accompanied by a large number of donations to local food banks, crowdfunding drives and other aid to economically devastated Americans.
The $ 4 billion charitable contributions from Amazon shareholder Mackenzie Scott, announced earlier this month, may be the largest. But many Americans are also contributing, donating $ 10 or $ 20, some for the first time.
Many nonprofits have suffered this year when the pandemic closed galas and fundraisers. But donations to some small and medium-sized charities were up 7.6 percent in the first nine months of 2020 over 2019, according to a recent analysis by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which tracks nearly 2,500 groups. The number of donors has increased by 11.7%.
The trend appears to have continued into December, generally the busiest time for charitable giving in the United States, early data shows. Charities received $ 2.47 billion in donations on Dec. 1, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving known as GivingTuesday, 25% more than in 2019.
“People are giving like we’ve never seen before,” said Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer for GivingTuesday.
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Much of that comes in small dollar amounts, suggesting that people across the income spectrum are increasing their contributions, Rosenbaum said.
About 70 percent of campaign donations on GoFundMe were less than $ 50 this year, up from 40 percent in 2019, according to a spokesperson for the fundraising website.
“What we have now is much more collective action,” Rosenbaum said.
America’s Food Fund, which started this year, raised more than $ 44 million on GoFundMe, the largest campaign ever on the fundraising website. Long-standing programs like the United States Post Office’s Operation Santa, which unites donors with families in need who send letters to a special address at the North Pole, report unprecedented support.
Jonathan Cummings, CEO of Revive South Jersey, a ministry that began in 2012 to teach English, counsel and provide housing assistance in local communities, says a “wave” of volunteers signed up to deliver food every two weeks. after the organization realized that many of the families it supports were struggling to pay for groceries.
Tuesday donations tracked by Share Omaha, a Nebraska organization that supports local nonprofits, nearly doubled this year from 2019, to more than $ 3 million, with a third coming from first-time donors.
When the group asked for volunteers earlier in the year to prepare meals for the homeless and other tasks, it received 700 applications, up from a monthly average of 200.
“Even if people are out of work or on leave, they want to give back to the community,” said Marjorie Maas, the organization’s executive director.
Janette McCabe was one of hundreds of people waiting in cars before dawn on the Monday before Christmas in a parking lot in Warren, Michigan, for a distribution from the Forgotten Harvest food bank.
McCabe and her husband recently lost their jobs and have been dependent on food stamps. He has been coming to the food bank distribution for about a month and a half.
“The volunteers are fantastic,” McCabe said. “I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have them.”
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