Chenango County Hunger Partnership

The Chenango County Hunger Partnership was created in January 2025 after the United Way of Mid Rural New York received a grant from the Community Foundation for SCNY’s Chobani Community Impact Fund to create a unified partnership of food pantries, soup kitchens and other food security organizations in Chenango County.

Many factors are now affecting families in need and food insecurity is on the rise. During the COVID pandemic, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on families and children to help with hunger (mass food distributions, increase in SNAP benefits, increase in EFSP funding, etc.…); now that those dollars/resources are no longer available and costs are on the rise for food and utilities, more people than ever are in need. ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) families have been particularly affected, as these families often work multiple jobs and still struggle to make ends meet every day, but do not qualify for most state/federal benefits.

Federal Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) dollars have also been paused for our community, both for new phase 42; any past spending for phases 41, 40 and 39 are additionally paused. These are congressional appropriated funds that come to our communities to support local food pantries, soup kitchens and programs assisting those facing utility shut offs and evictions. For many of these small, volunteer run programs, these federal funds are their majority sources of funding each year.

At the first Chenango Hunger Partnership meeting in February 2025, the group in attendance was asked to share their most pressing challenges. Most identified the same needs over and over again:

· Increased need by families

· Lack of transportation and accessibility

· Lack of fresh healthy food

· Many funding barriers

· Increase in senior insecurity

· Higher price of food

· Decrease in donors

Based on these needs, the Chenango Hunger Partnership, under the facilitation of the United Way of Mid Rural New York, will continue to meet on a bimonthly basis (sometimes in conjunction with the Food Bank of CNY) in order to do the following: network and share resources, educate the community about local food insecurity and discuss and implement ways to decrease hunger for local families.