PHOENIX — St. Mary's Food Bank is being hit hard by record inflation, both in the number of people it serves and the number of donations it's getting.
"We're feeding more than 1,000 families, 1,200 families a day just at our two main locations," spokesman Jerry Brown said.
Brown said they're seeing 5% more people than they usually see during the already busy summer season.
Inflation numbers announced Wednesday showed inflation increased at 9.1% for the month of June, with the biggest increase hitting food.
Gas is up 60% over last year. Rent is up 6%, and food costs are 10.4% higher than this time last year.
At St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix, cars stretched around the building and out into traffic Wednesday.
Brown chocks that up to inflation making it more difficult for people to buy the food they need to get by.
But on top of that, Brown said donations are also lagging, mostly because products are more expensive and people don't donate s much.
"Trying to get donations of protein and kinds of meats is almost impossible," he said.
Brown said the food bank is trying to stretch the food they do have to meet the increased demand.
“If you looked in the in the grocery basket today as opposed to what you saw last year, you would see that we're stretching donations," he said.
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