Lines are getting longer at food pantries such as Crossfire Ministries in Colorado Springs, the largest recipient of supplies from Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado.

“We are seeing an increase in needs,” said Crossfire Ministries’ Renee Beebe, executive director. “With inflation and the cost-of-living increasing, families are struggling to make ends meet.”

As Care and Share can attest, more households are seeking out free cupboard and refrigerated staples from the food bank’s 291 partner agencies, which include churches, schools, community centers and nonprofits that distribute essentials to needy residents, a new report from Feeding America confirms.

An updated Map the Meal Gap study, issued earlier this month by the national anti-hunger organization that encompasses the nation’s food banks, shows Colorado’s food insecurity at 11.5% of the population statewide.

But Care and Share, which covers the southern half of Colorado from Monument south to the New Mexico border and stretching to the Kansas and Utah borders to the east and west, ranks with a higher percentage of 12.8% of its service area identified as being food insecure.

The United States Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as when people don’t have enough to eat and don’t know from where their next meal will come.

Last year, 25,000 more people sought out free food from Care and Share-supplied locations than in 2022, President and CEO Nate Springer said Tuesday.

“We’re putting out just as much food as we ever have,” he said.

The organization served a total of 256,000 individual clients in 2023, he said, most of whom return regularly to neighborhood pantries for groceries. In all, Care and Share handed out 23 million pounds of food in 2023 — the equivalent of 19 million meals — from its distribution centers in Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Alamosa.

Demand this year is trending on the same upward path, Springer said, at the same time that federal funding for food insecurity has dropped substantially.

Additional pandemic-era funding to stave off hunger during economically lean times, largely from the America Rescue Plan, has pushed dollars to curb food insecurity in Colorado from $14 million in 2023 to just $3 million this year, Springer said in issuing a call-to-action for donations of food and money from individuals, businesses, corporations and other nonprofits.

Food insecurity is rarely about food, he said. It’s primarily about the costs of other services and goods.

“Food costs have gone up but so have fixed costs — rent, utilities, insurance — and you can’t pay half of those,” Springer said.

So, people spend their money on housing expenses and use free grocery giveaways as a way to supplement their income, he said.

Poverty, unemployment and a lack of household assets contribute to food insecurity, according to Feeding America, and the situation disproportionately affects communities of color.

“In 2024-25 with the food insecurity environment in Colorado we’re going to have to be creative,” Springer said.

Care and Share will mark its 50th anniversary this fall, having been incorporated on Oct. 1, 1974, and starting with one truck working out of a garage. Today, the organization operates on a $12 million annual budget with 63 employees across its three distribution centers and nearly 6,000 unduplicated volunteers annually.

Donations are accepted at careandshare.org, click on the donate button, or by dropping off food at distribution centers. The Colorado Springs warehouse is at 2605 Preamble Point.

A $25 donation provides 125 meals, according to the organization.