Southeast Missouri Food Bank served nearly 12.8 million meals last year, as inflation caused more people to seek food assistance for the first time. According to food bank CEO Joey Keys, they served about 10,000 more people a month last year than in 2021.
Other highlights of the year were: Providing monthly food boxes to 5,350 senior citizens; partnering with 30 school districts to provide weekend food for 1,270 students;
holding over 300 mobile food distributions; and completing more than 16-hundred SNAP applications to link people with an important resource to obtain food on a regular basis.
The food bank serves 80,000 people each month through a network of 140 partner agencies and programs in a 16-county area.