As food prices climb, food pantries have been feeding more people. WAMC’s Elias Guerra has more from Poughkeepsie.
Barbara St. Leger was shopping at the Tropical Fresh grocery store on Main Street. She could only laugh when asked if the high prices are impacting her.
"Absolutely, we can barely eat," St. Leger said. "It’s terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. Like you have to like figure out. You literally have to choose between trying to feed your family or pay a bill, and it's not it's not getting any better, and the prices just keep going up.”
The data supports what St. Leger is saying. The Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers climbed 4.2% between May 2025 and May 2026, the highest it’s been since February 2023.
Meanwhile, food prices increased 3.1% in that time. This comes as U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show costs for needs like energy and clothing have also jumped in that time, further stretching personal budgets.
Antonio Marco Villarael, who also goes by Hermano Tony, said he has seen a significant spike in the numbers of people coming to the food pantry at the Poughkeepsie Seventh-day Adventist Church on Market Street open on Mondays.
He said the pantry used to serve around 250 families last year. This year, they are on pace to at least double that. And when the pantry stays open later, Villarael says people just keep coming. Meanwhile, he said the money they receive as a charitable organization is not enough.
He said $2,000 is not very much, especially when you have 400 people coming.
Villarael said recently customers have been coming from farther away, like Hyde Park, Wappinger, and Newburgh.
One attendee at the church Monday, Lucy Espinosa, said it’s not just food prices that are high. She said it’s also hard to find work, which makes everything more complicated.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was in Pougkeepsie Monday to visit Tropical Fresh. She said grocery prices are at an all-time high around the state.
“I've just seen a rise in a lot of prices, especially for proteins, a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables,” she said.
She blames the Trump administration, specifically the war in Iran, global tariffs, and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Ralena Noble was at the food pantry Monday and said she lost her SNAP benefits two months ago because she is an able bodied adult.
“I lost food stamps and with no job it’s hard to get food around here," Noble said. "That’s why I rely on food pantries these days. It’s not easy. Definitely with the price of groceries it’s a lot more difficult."
