If you think high prices in the grocery store or gas line are hitting you hard, consider how much inflation must be affecting residents on low and fixed incomes.

Those who work in our local food pantries think about it every day.

They see it in the statistics, with Aurora’s two largest pantries reporting a 30% to 36% increase in the guests they are helping just in the last several months.

They hear it in the voices of those who call on the phone, many who have never before used a pantry but say they are now reaching out because there’s no way to feed the family and still try to cover rent.

They also see it in the faces of these new guests, including a growing number of seniors, which Diane Renner, executive director of Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry, describes as “heartbreaking.”

Only recently, Renner received a call from an elderly woman who had just returned from the hospital and was “humbled and embarrassed” about her need for a few food items, asking for only “milk, bread, eggs and soup to get her through.”

Renner delivered those items on Saturday, along with a few extras, like peanut butter and tuna. But the woman, she added, had a hard time looking her in the face and became “choked up” as she was handed the box.

“What it took for her to call us,” said Renner, quickly adding there are far more seniors in the community who really should use pantries, as inflation is making it tougher than ever to juggle their food, housing and medical needs.

Consider this: In 2021, Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry fed over 100,000 people and gave out over 3.5 million pounds of food. At Marie Wilkinson, 54,714 individuals were served nearly 2 million meals consisting of 1,591,916 pounds of food.

But as inflation continues its uptick, so also do the number of guests who used to come once a month but are now coming every other week or even weekly.

Both pantries are seeing people in what Renner describes as “more desperate situations.”

That includes Michael Moore, a celiac patient with multiple other autoimmune diseases that have taken a heavy toll on his health and his wallet.

Moore told me he has to live on $1,300 a month and relies on both pantries to provide the food his body can tolerate. But right now the 70-year-old former software developer is also struggling to find a place to live because his landlord of 11 years is selling the property.

Moore, whose medical condition makes it hard for him to also tolerate many chemicals, knows time is running short. Subsidized housing has a one- to three-year waiting list, he said. And because he has no car or computer, finding an affordable replacement has been as futile as it has been frustrating.

“There is just too much need out there,” Moore said, noting how “the food pantries are mobbed with a lot of new people.”

Supply chain issues and rising labor costs are also affecting pantry budgets. For example, the pantry’s cost for a single can of vegetables has doubled in the last couple of years, noted Renner, going from 13 cents to 26 cents.

Which means, she added, “we have to be a lot smarter” in how the food is purchased.

And how it is distributed.

Marie Wilkinson is not only making great use of the produce grown in its garden, but now does its own composting, as well as using this garden and greenhouse space to conduct healthy eating/cooking sessions for guests as they wait for the pantry to open.

The Health Sense class, Renner promised, is but one of the current and near-future programs her pantry is developing that will offer so much more than food on the shelf for those struggling during tough times.

At Aurora Interfaith, the big news is that, after being written into the next state budget for the first time in the pantry’s 41-year history, the nonprofit will receive $350,000 in funding.

According to Marketing Manager Alyssa Edwards, the money will be used to purchase a vehicle for its free mobile programs for women, children and seniors; as well as air-conditioning for the storage warehouse; a new refrigerated truck for its food recovery pickups; and other capital and technological improvements.

Rising grocery costs, the pandemic and current inflation have had a “massive impact” on our community, noted state Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, who, along with state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, helped secure the grant.

Which means more people have no choice but to rely on food pantries. In April there were 450 new families added to the Interfaith list, according to Edwards; in May, there were another 299 and in June, 167 were added.

Included in those statistics are people like Luis Megia, who lost his restaurant job during the pandemic, but bounced back to become a diesel mechanic until a truck fell out of a jack and nearly crushed him beneath a wheel in November.

Because the company provided no benefits, that accident, combined with inflationary prices, sent the 43-year-old man back to the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry a couple months ago after his savings ran out.

And that’s made a huge difference in his ability to “hang in there” until he’s able to return to work, he told me.

“The pantry has really helped a lot,” Megia said, “especially because I’m home and can use the produce we get to cook healthy meals.”

While the number of people served has not reached the statistics at the height of the pandemic, Renner told me that, at the rate it is going now, “we will be there before the end of the year.”

Shannon Cameron, executive director of Interfaith, sees the same writing on the wall.

In a press release expressing gratitude for the state funding, she acknowledged how “more and more people are turning to local food pantries to feed their families.

“Almost every day we are signing up 20 new families,” she said, then added, “the end is not in sight.”