JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — Food insecurity in Chautauqua County is rising at an alarming rate. Feedmore WNY shared the number of people needing food assistance in the county has nearly doubled in just two years.
- Feedmore WNY is serving 47% more people in Chautauqua Co. from 2021 to 2023.
- 15% of Chautauqua County’s population is food insecure (third-highest rate in New York state)
- Jamestown church expanding meal services to help the growing number of people in need.
“Hunger continues to be a very serious problem throughout Western New York, not just in our cities, but in our suburbs and our rural communities, especially places like Chautauqua County,” Feedmore WNY Public Relations Manager Catherine Shick said. “People in rural communities are impacted, not just the inner-city.”
How dire has this situation become in recent years?
According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study in 2022, 15% of Chautauqua County’s population is food insecure.
That’s the third-highest percentage for a county in New York state.
The only counties with a higher percentage of population with limited food access are Kings County and Bronx County in New York City.
That’s where pastor Cameron Lienhart comes in.
His church, Conduit Ministries in Jamestown, has been providing meals to people in need on holidays for years and every Sunday for several months, but now, more and more people show up for help.
“I think the first week, we saw about 50 people come through, now we’re regularly in the area now of 300 to 400 meals a week,” Lienhart said. “I don’t want anybody in the city of Jamestown to wonder where their next meal is coming from.”
To help more people within that growing need, Lienhart had to add another day of service, now also serving additional meals to that large percentage in need every Wednesday.
“Hoping this opportunity on Wednesday nights in various parks around the city bridges the gap even more for people.”
One man in need told 7 News reporter Derek Heid he walked more than five miles just so he could pick up meals for his wife and kids from Lienhart’s service.
He then was going to walk more than an hour home with the food in hand, until Lienhart offered to drive him home instead.
This service will continue at various locations around Jamestown throughout the summer.
On Tuesday, FeedMore WNY shared it’s experiencing a shortage of community food donations:
One easy way people can donate is through Instacart’s Community Cart program.
By purchasing your donation online at Instacart.com, Instacart shoppers will drop off the order directly to the nonprofit's warehouse.
You can also make a monetary donation here.
