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Date: 3/21/2023
AMHERST – The decrease in SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) coupled with the sharp increase in food prices due to inflation has caused the Amherst Survival Center to increase its service hours and to ask the community for both food and monetary donations, according to its executive director Lev Ben-Ezra.
This is the first time the center has increased its hours in response to growing demand for services, she added. She explained the center has expanded initially when it added delivery services during the coronavirus pandemic, which reduced the number of people who came to the center.
During the coronavirus pandemic the SNAP benefits increased several times, Ben-Ezra said, but now the benefits are decreasing.
She quoted a study from the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute which found that decrease in benefits amounts to a loss of $1.1 million in the communities served by the center. The nonprofit organization serves Amherst, Belchertown, Deerfield, Granby, Hadley, Leverett, Pelham, Shutesbury, Sunderland, Ware and Whately, as well as anyone experiencing homelessness.
The center started on March 14 to expand its hours by adding Tuesday evenings to its schedule, she told Reminder Publishing. The new hours for onsite full-choice shopping will be Monday 12-3 p.m., Tuesday 12-7 p.m., Thursday 12-7 p.m., and Friday 12-3 p.m. Curbside pick-up will be available on Monday 3-4 p.m., Tuesday 5-7:30 p.m., Thursday 5-7:30 p.m., and Friday 3-4p.m. Both full choice shopping and curbside pick-ups are also available.
In February, the center provided more than 106,000 meals – prepared and groceries – to more than 3,200 area residents. It is now serving 26 percent more households each month than the average during the peak of COVID-19, and 62 percent more households monthly than prior to COVID-19.
The center offers a selection of fresh produce, milk, eggs, cheese, prepared foods, canned goods, cereal, pasta, rice and frozen meat as well as stocking items to meet a variety of cultural diets, including Halal meat, various dried beans, maseca flour, and varied produce.
She said the statistics show “a remarkable increase” with a record number of new clients “who have never come to the Amherst Survival Center.”
She added, “Across the board the cost of food and living expenses are stretching people.” About half of the people who are coming are working, but their wages cannot keep up with increasing costs.
She said the MIT Living Wage Calculator indicates that a family of four – two working adults and two children must be earning $27 an hour in full-time wages to support a household.
“Clearly our minimum wage of new level of $15 an hour is about half of that,” Ben-Ezra said.
The center is seeking donations to meet this need. “At this time, we are really looking to the community, as we always do to help support this expansion,” Ben-Ezra said.
Donations of peanut butter, tuna, and beans – non-perishable protein – can be dropped off Monday and Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., or the third Saturday of the month from 9 a.m. to noon. Financial donations to purchase food can be made online at www.amherstsurvival.org. Anyone interested in hosting a food drive to collect these items can email pantry@amherstsurvival.org.