Across the rural communities and industrial towns of western Michigan, semitrucks hauling thousands of pounds of food are pulling up to church parking lots and community centers where growing lines of people are waiting for a few boxes of free groceries.
One truck can carry enough food for up to 600 households, but some days even that isn’t enough to meet the demand, which has gone up by 18% over the past 12 months, said Ken Estelle, president of Feeding America West Michigan.
“We have never seen this level of need in the 43 years we have been serving this community. It is significantly higher than during Covid and has pressed us beyond our capacity,” said Estelle. “We’ve just seen this drumbeat increase every month of more people and more people.”…