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Food insecurity expected to rise as pandemic relief programs end

two men unloading a truck
WAMC
A food donation is delivered to Open Pantry in Springfield in 2020.

Benefits such as child tax credit kept people from going hungry in 2021

Food pantries and soup kitchens in western Massachusetts are said to be bracing for an increase in demand.

Costs for such things as housing and gasoline have skyrocketed. At the same time, federal pandemic relief programs that put money into peoples’ pockets have ended, or will soon.

WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with Andrew Morehouse, Executive Director of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.