Fighting Food Insecurity In The Face Of Adversity

SALISBURY, Md – The Lazarus Food Pantry is trying to battle food insecurity in the area, despite facing challenges.

Executive Director Debbie Donaway said that with pandemic programs and supports drying up, keeping those at risk of food insecurity fed has only gotten harder: “During Covid, we were seeing all these lines in Baltimore. I said ‘You wait, Salisbury’s gonna see it later.’ It always hits a little different on the eastern shore…So then all of a sudden here we are, the numbers are back, the resource of free food has cut back, the need has increased, so we find ourselves struggling”

Requests for assistance rose 37% in 2023. With that kind of jump, it can be very difficult to secure the funding needed to properly serve those in need. “Our deficit at the end of 2023 was $13,000,” said Donaway, noting that it was the first significant budget deficit she had seen since beginning at Salisbury Urban Ministries in 2013. She emphasized how all the man-hours they receive from volunteers make their operation possible, especially in the face of difficulty securing funding: “A lot of different funders don’t give funds for staffing. They’ll give it to purchase food, to do programming, but they don’t do it for staffs. How can you run a program without staff in place?”

But in spite of the difficulty, Salisbury Urban Ministries is continually looking for ways to expand their reach. Donaway says the ultimate goal is to create a network of food pantries across the eastern shore, with the Lazarus location being a central hub that supplies other operations: “Ideally, [we would] have a large building that we could store a lot of the food in, and have these different pantries come on site, help them pick up their food and help them with the administrative part of it. I think we could do a better job serving a larger area.”

Operated by Salisbury Urban Ministries, the pantry is open every Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. until noon. Salisbury Urban Ministries is also involved at locations in Willards and Pittsville.