Second Harvest faces bleaker future without National Guard help

ELYRIA — Food distributions and the number of people helped could be severely diminished if the National Guard pulls out of town. Since March, the National Guard has been assisting the Second Harvest Food Bank at distributions and packing food. Its mission is slated to end Aug. 7. If that happens, Executive Director Julie Chase-Morefield isn't sure what the food bank will do. She said the food bank is still seeing huge crowds at its distributions. Without the National Guard, it would be forced to reduce the number of people served almost in half or try to recruit volunteers. With COVID-19 numbers rising, volunteers aren't too keen to return yet, particularly since many of them are older. Corporate volunteers aren't likely to return until 2021 as employees work from home. There's also heavy lifting at the food sites. Chase-Morefield said Guard members are lifting 40-pound boxes 300 to 400 times during a distribution and putting them in cars. Many volunteers may not be able to take that workload. At Elyria's food distribution Wednesday, hundreds of cars had lined up before it officially began at 4 p.m. Right now, Chase-Morefield said Second Harvest is serving 1,500 people in the mobile food distributions. Without the Guard, that number would drop to probably about 500. "The need is here and you can see people are showing up," she said. "How are we going to continue to meet that need? And if we're only able to serve 400, what happens to the rest?" Chase-Morefield is joining many others petitioning local federal representatives, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Cincinnati, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, to get the National Guard's time extended. The National Guard was dispatched across the state to help local food banks. The Department of Defense has to sign off on the extension with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's approval. It then has to be signed by President Donald Trump. National Guard members do more than just distribute the food. They drive Second Harvest's trucks, unload semis at the warehouse and pack the boxes of food. On distribution days, Chase-Morefield said their day usually starts at 7 a.m. and doesn't end until 7 p.m. or later. Military vehicles and forklifts also are used for three to four distributions. And the National Guard members work about 3.5 times faster than volunteers, moving long lines through at a quick pace. Second Harvest had hoped that by now the COVID-19 numbers would go down and the need would begin to subside, but it hasn't happened. When school is back in session, the smaller districts may take some of the need away because they'll be able to feed students. But Chase-Morefield is worried. The additional $600 federal unemployment payments are due to expire this week and the pandemic EBT cards some parents got to buy food for their children are finished. It could just add to Second Harvest's food lines. Second Harvest serves Erie, Lorain, Crawford and Huron counties and the unemployment rates in those communities remain high. Chase-Morefield said rural areas in particular would see food distribution scaled back without the National Guard's help. Second Harvest would probably be able to do about one-third of what it is doing now. And serving 500 families is nearly double what it was serving before the pandemic. Distributions at the Lorain County Fairgrounds and in Amherst would have to end. Distributions out of the county, such as in Bucyrus, also would be halted. Bucyrus, a town of about 11,000 people, saw 450 families at its last distribution. Pantries that existed before the pandemic, like those in Elyria, Sheffield-Sheffield Lake and Midview, would be able to continue. Second Harvest has doubled its regular distribution, serving more than 2.7 million pounds of food. It also supplies food for Oberlin Community Services and Lorain and Elyria for the city's senior distributions. "We're worried," Chase-Morefield said. "The things that keep you up at night? This is it. I don't know what we're going to do without them." Contact Laina Yost at (440) 329-7121 or lyost@chroniclet.com.