Clients at the Village Harvest increased from 81 in March to 104 in April. Ongoing, the church is now advertising with local social service and Caroline County Schools to increase visits. 104 represents the largest number since Jan, 2022 where there were 115. It was additionally above last year’s April figure of 70.
Food in pounds were 1,365 representing the largest amount of food available since last Dec.
The food is divided into produce, grocery items and meat. The graph compared April 2023, 2022 and 2021 and then 2019. (There was no distribution in 2020 due to the pandemic.) Produce recovered in April, 2023 up to 51% of the total after slipping to 35% and 27% in 2022 and 2021, respectively. It now exceeds in percentage 2019, the last normal year prior to the pandemic.
Despite the improvement year to date after 4 months, we are 12% below 2022 in clients and 20% under in available food.