“We’ve been in existence since 2015.”
Executive Director of Kent County’s Community Food Club AJ Fossel says for the first time in their 10-year history, a waitlist has been created due to the rising demand for food services.
“Since 2023, we’ve doubled the amount of households that we’re serving every month of the food club.”
Fossel says over 9,000 people shop in their non-profit store for a week’s worth of groceries, with another 1,000 households joining the club’s waitlist since May.
“And we just knew that we didn’t have the funding to be able to continue to allow everybody to walk into our store as we normally had.”
Fossel says food access was already unstable in Kent County, and although Community Food Club can’t replace the loss of SNAP benefits, they’re doing what they can to fill that gap.
“But the charitable food system is really maxed out at this point.”
More information can be found online at CommunityFoodClubGR.org.
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