It was truly a year like no other, and the trends we began to see in the last quarter of 2020 are sure to continue throughout the beginning of 2021. COVID-19 highlighted what we do well, but also quickly exposed our organizational weaknesses.

Throughout the year we have used the unique challenges that resulted from the pandemic to analyze, evaluate, edit, and improve our services. We learned a great deal about how we can feed people faster, more efficiently, and with greater privacy for our clients.

It is with that learning, and with many more questions still to answer, that we head into 2021. We are excited to continue growing, learning, and improving, to better serve the community this year and into the future. Thank you for your continued support.

• Food Pantry: 2020 brought to MCHPP a 22% increase in visits to our Food Pantry when compared to 2019. Our three busiest months ever were (in order): November, December, October. In December we had 1,147 visits, bringing the annual total to 10,965 visits for the year. The rapid increase in numbers as we reached the colder months signifies to us that this will be a long, challenging winter for those we serve. We expect to continue to see busy pantry days in the coming months as the Maine winter compounds the economic hardships associated with the pandemic. While we miss the days of mingling with our clients while they “shopped” for their groceries inside, we are grateful that our curbside model has effectively allowed us to meet this increased need by making the process faster, more efficient, and more confidential.
• Soup Kitchen: We served over 64,000 meals in 2020. That figure represents a 58% increase over 2019. While a portion of this increase may represent more clients served, it also reflects how effective our new curbside model has been. In our previous dining room format, most individuals ate only one or two meals, whereas today they are taking delicious, hot meals home for themselves and their families, sometimes to eat now, or sometimes to eat later. This service is making it more convenient for our guests to access a greater quantity of ready to eat meals.
• Food Bank: In 2020, the food bank processed over 1.2 million pounds of rescued and donated food, an increase of 5% over 2019. Because this increase did not keep up with the pace of growth in our client-facing programs, we supplemented with a significant amount of purchased food this year, particularly from farm partners.
• Mobile Pantries: In 2020, Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program’s mobile pantries in Harpswell and Lisbon were visited more than 2,500 times, a 127% increase over 2019. This dramatic increase is attributed to a significant expansion at the beginning of the pandemic when we increased Mobile Pantries in Harpswell from monthly to weekly. We are still maintaining a weekly Pantry schedule in Harpswell and a monthly schedule in Lisbon through the first months of 2021.
• School Pantries: We partnered with 29 schools in multiple school districts to distribute just under 160,000 pounds of free food to children in need in 2020. The pandemic brought particular challenges to the School Pantry program this year, as schools, families, and Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program navigated the frameworks of hybrid and remote learning.